Natural Selection

I was in Barrow on a hospital visit when I saw the above Lesser Black-backed Gull as I stopped for fuel. It has a crossbow bolt through its neck. I grabbed a few shots, but the bird rather understandably didn’t allow close approach. It appears to have other bolts / bolt wounds as well, but…

I’ve been meaning to post about seeing dolphins a week last Friday but life has been getting in the way. In the meantime I’ve managed to completely miss a spectacular passage of Little Gulls through the area. But I don’t care, I’ve seen dolphins off Blackpool Prom and that always works for me. It was…

I’m not doing myself any favours today with my choice of topic. I’ve watched an Osprey catching a fish at close range only a handful of miles from my childhood home, something I’ve meant to get round to since they colonised south west Cumbria. I’ve also been mesmerised by swarms of Sand Martins appearing over…

Today’s birding consisted of a Lancaster Breeding Atlas tetrad. I was doing SD45L, which is the area shown in the map below. Note the word ‘airfield’. This is the Black Knights parachuting facility, and they were doing a roaring trade enabling people to jump out of their light aircraft today. The birds, in addition to…

Pied Flycatcher by Steve Garvie used under Wikipedia Commons licence Last year I wrote a post called ‘Searching For Itinerant Vicars’ in which I explained that Ring Ousels were a bogey bird for me on the Fylde. Since then I’ve found one on Porto Santo where they are rare and seen a couple on Out…

In the time I’ve been doing this blog I’ve only seen two new birds for me in my home town before today. One of those was bittersweet, as the Pallid Swift last November from my office didn’t linger for clinching photographs needed for acceptance. The Red-footed Falcon at Marton Mere was much more straightforward. Fortunately…

Like a lot of people I find daily time with nature beneficial to my mental wellbeing. Today I was at work for eleven hours as we had a board meeting this evening, but with the clocks going forward it was still light when I left at seven. I decided to nip to the nearest place…

This blog has something of an identity crisis, but one of the things it hopefully does is show that there are natural treasures to be enjoyed even in a densely area like Blackpool. The last week I’ve seen the following in the town as we are on the cusp of spring: Redshank, Turnstone and Purple…

The Kathleen Jamie event trailed in yesterday’s blog has now moved to Tuesday 18th April. If anyone saw my offer of a lift from Blackpool can disregard that, as I unfortunately can’t make the rescheduled date… Tickets are now on sale for the Mark Cocker event on 22nd June, where he will be in conversation…

I know this blog has an identity crisis, but it is supposed to be about my creative writing and others who practice in that field. Lancaster University Future Places Centre have just confirmed details of one of the great contemporary British nature writers coming to the area. next month. Kathleen Jamie is currently Scotland’s Makar,…