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The Burn

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  The Burn The small signs were there as early as June: Leaves shed early pooling beneath the birch, Sloes purpling the blackthorn weeks ahead, The spent spires of docks rusting too soon Into the long green stems of the hedgerow…   On our screens, Daytime TV presenters Ticked off the Gulf Stream and El Nino, Gave tips on Mediterranean food, The benefits of linen and sunscreen And reported booming interest in The great British al fresco staycation.   The official announcements came later As the sun beat the ground into a crisp Shell, a fossil of the fertile crust; Cracks widening, the plants withering, Dying where they stood, and water, water, Nowhere it used to be: not in the rivers Clogged with filth - the final dividend Of fleeing, fat cat chief executives – Not in the sky, nor in the reservoirs Where mud showed like receding gums, Nor in the towns where lawns were pale as straw – ‘Gardeners’ World’ was cancelled right awa...
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BIRDING MALLORCA

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  May in Mallorca In early May, we spent a week in the beautiful countryside just to the north of Pollenca, and I managed to dovetail some birding with family trips around the island. An unexpected and unfortunate facilitator in this regard was the stomach bug that laid everybody low but which allowed me dashes of a different nature on a few occasions. Part of the fun is in the planning and I must mention the Mallorca thread on Birdforum, run by Mike Montier, which is as generous with its time and patience with holidaying birders as it is with its knowledge and expertise. As a relatively inexperienced birder abroad, the opportunity to see species which are rare or scarce in the UK, either close at hand or in greater numbers, was exceptional. On the first morning, I was up and out early and had the Boquer Valley -  a dramatic, high-sided cleft running into the sea above Puerto Pollenca -  all to myself.  Sardinian warblers chattered from the bushes and a rock thr...
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Norfolk Nature: Spring 2026 Part 4

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  Spring 2026:   Comings and Goings Some warm south-easterlies in late March/early April brought several scarcities from the continent. A great grey shrike largely kept company with the golfers on the Hunstanton course, occasionally deigning to flirt with the birding hoi polloi on the coastal path. Birders were also out in force on the streets of Sedgeford a few weeks later as a hoopoe wafted from gardens to parks, occasionally stopping for food and photo opportunities. The sight of ageing men in camouflage running down alleyways in answer to the siren call of nature is not an edifying one but such indignity was forgiven by the exotic presence of the onomatopoeically named  upupa epops . The real rarity of this spring was the Ross's gull, a bird of the high Arctic and the first in Norfolk since the Cley adult of 1984. Found at Titchwell, it then circled around fields south of Thornham for a single day. It was a dainty 2CY bird which, after holding off for much of the time...
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