Graylings and Silver Studded Blues

Here are two of my favourite creatures......one of them, the elusive banded grayling, is truly a butterfly with personality and vanishing tendencies......find them while you can...

More Silver Studded Blues and Small Blue

Silver Studded Blue Roosting

I found this blue, and several others, roosting in the long grass on Yateley common. With each passing year, ths butterfly fades away from our memory even as it disppears from the heaths. With its complex ecology - (associated with an ant which needs heather of a certain length)- the blue quickly vanishes if the bell heather gets too long. Lack of grazing since 1940 has led to the heaths becoming overgrown.....and the butterfly has all but gone. See it while you can.

Robins are so pretty

The robin is one of our favourite birds, nationally, and it has almost a sacred status; even in this secular land. Small, tame and immenseley beautiful, they are truly lovely to see, anywhere, any time.....

Wood Lark and Tree Pipit videos

Wood Larks and Tree Pipits at Farnham Heath

Yesterday, these marvellous birds were at Farnham Heath Nature Reserve. In the evenng light the air rings with the calls of these two bird species as they make their exuberant sailing display flights high into the air before gliding down into the heather. These two birds are increasingly rare and in decline. The lark, especially so.

Magical Waters

Water nymphs and Ondines lurk in the streams and wells, still....look for them as you cross, offer them flowers and dreams and utter respect....and when it is dark remember and honour them with candle light.

Amazing Birds

I never tire of birds. They are my solace. In all their forms they are utterly beautiful, magnificent creatures, linking earth and sky, the past and the future....In the heron sunning itself and the giant ground hornbill sleeping on the ground, I see nature at work. There are beaks and beaks and colours, and I wonder, do birds dream and what or who created such creatures...? Such genius....such magic. There is mystery in a Starling's red wing and a roller's rufous chest and pale blue tail....and what of the Inca Tern with its long curved beak and the marvelous stock dove lurking in the trees...and the great dark vulture....what does he think...would he eat me?

Holybourne sacred pool

At Holybourne in Hampshire, beside the Church of the Holy Rood, there is a sacred pool. Here there is magic in the stillness; the green of the overhanging trees and the ducks and geese scurrying around looking at their own reflections in the clear water.....It is an amazing, marvellous place.

Young Thrush

This young song thrush was very obliging in letting me photograph it. What a marvellous sight, and an increasingly rare one, as domestic cats have decimated the species and pushed it onto the red list of British birds.

Marabout Stork

The magnificent Marabout Stork is one of the most amazing birds in the world. Hunched like some grotesque old man in the swamps it is truly spectacular. It is named after the "marabout" or West African holy man, dressed in simlar drab colours, and often hunched over his beads and bones.....This bird is one of a group of spectacular giant storks. Sadly they are all in decline and two species are hovering close to extinction in Asia.