Sunday June 29th I saw the first one from a plane and it was gleaming white over the wrinkled sea. Then I saw three more. Gannets, they were: the great spear-billed dive-bombers of the seas. Not easy birds to see unless you’re on a boat. But I was flying to Alderney – one of the… [Read More]

Saturday June 27 There was a loud, sharp yell from above, but I didn’t mind. I’m incorrigible, you see. I just smiled benignly and the ring-necked parakeet hurried away; for parakeets always seem to be late for an urgent appointment. I was staying with old friends in Highbury, which is in That London, as you… [Read More]

Friday June 26 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. That lovely phrase comes from the Song of Solomon: and yes, the voice of the turtle was heard in my own land today. For about a… [Read More]

Thursday June 25 It was the least wild day in June, it was the wildest day of the year. I spent most of it sitting in a barn in Suffolk, talking, listening, doodling, watching videos and PowerPoint presentations. I saw little non-human life. But it was a glorious and triumphant day for wildness and for… [Read More]

Wednesday June 24 The above phrase was lurking beneath my conscious mind as I sat on Beccles station. I was on my way to a conservation get-together at the time. I later Googled it and discovered, to my chagrin, that it’s the title of a song and an album from Geri Halliwell. How come I’d… [Read More]

Tuesday June 23   Ah these dramas. They get me ever time. Any little bird worth its salt will take on a bird of prey. It looks like a suicide mission: it’s actually a diamond-hard survival technique. I was doing some outside chore when I hear the two-note call of swallow. In easy times this… [Read More]

Monday June 22 We were bidden to tea. After Eddie had done full justice to the profiteroles he felt the need to explore the garden.  A little later I went to join him. And he had made a discovery. On the ground, some interesting and unusual little pellets of stuff. It was a delightful find…. [Read More]

June 20 We stopped the car so that Eddie could show me the prodigious bracket fungus he found the day before. Then he showed me the fine flower meadow on the other side of the road, another impressive project from our neighbours at Raveningham Hall. And then one of those moments. The moment when a… [Read More]

After Eddie had gone to bed – just before I did myself – I stepped out again. I think my idea was to see if I could complete the job I had begun when Eddie and I sat outside the stables to watch the rising dusk. Perhaps the sight of a bat or the sound… [Read More]

June 18 It annoyed me that I couldn’t name the dragonfly Eddie and I saw at the pond. No reason why I should; I can only name half a dozen species with even approximate certainty. But I was still annoyed. All I could say for sure it was that it wasn’t a Norfolk hawker. I… [Read More]

It’s a perfect Poohsticks bridge: just high enough to make the drop interesting, just wide enough and the stream just slow enough to make the contest last for just the right amount of time. The setting is easy, secluded and free of any Tiggers inclined to bounce you into the water. So Eddie and I… [Read More]

30 days wild 12 Does a zoo count? Saturday June 13 It was evening time when Eddie and I arrived at our local zoo at Kessingland, which is confusingly called Africa Alive. They stay open late once every summer, and it turned out to be a crowd-puller. The big numbers got the big mammals all… [Read More]

Wild, wild horses Monday June 8            Not a terribly wild day, save that all horsey days have their wildness. We had to move a horse to the other side of Norfolk: load him into a trailer, cross the county, unload. Which required some adequate horsemanship from me and some superb driving from Cindy. And… [Read More]

The bells, the bells Saturday June 6 It was one of those evening that you think will never end, the sky never darken, the temperature never fall. So we – Eddie, Cindy, me – sat on a bench with the river in front of us and watched fluff. The weekend pleasure boats were all parked… [Read More]

Friday There is a giant ash tree above my writing hut, lofty and apparently in good health. Touch wood. It’s become the cuckoo’s favourite perch – stud-post, to be more technical. It’s become a favourite place, from which he can belt out his unchanging plea for female company. I’ve been able to see him in… [Read More]

Though I seem to have missed out on my fair share this week. Not to worry: I made up for it today, at least a bit. Sitting quietly doing nothing is one of the quintessential wild experiences. It helps to do it in the right sort of place of course – but anywhere you can… [Read More]

This was the moment at which I got the point of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time: a work that was to become one of the great recurring pleasures of my life. It occurs on page 46 of the fourth of the 12 volumes – so it’s quite a long wait —… [Read More]

Only a day into my glorious resolution to follow the Wildlife Trusts’ advice and do something wild every day in June, I blew it. Well, mostly. It was as if the resolution had called down work from all corners of the globe, and a self-employed writer has to go with the flow. So I wrote… [Read More]

            The Wildlife Trusts have told us that it’s a good idea to do something wild every single day of June. So Eddie and I thought we’d better do what they say, and we’re going to try and make a project out of it. We began today simply enough: by walking round our scrap… [Read More]