A double rainbow… Summer just wasn’t long enough this year. In fact, life isn’t long enough. There are so many things to do and see, and places to go. Autumn is being a real let down with night time temperatures around zero, meaning it looks like we’re just going to go straight into winter. I […]

Summer is finally here and with it comes a selection of animals that we don’t see at other times of the year. Sadly, even after a horrifically long and cold winter, we’ve only had a few hot days thus far. Hopefully, the weather will pick up at some point. Probably the most noticeable summer visitor […]

This weekend I finally retired my old trail camera, an RD1000. I think it cost me about 70 GBP 4 years ago. It’s not the cheapest of trailcams but it’s certainly not a higher end one (such as a Bushnell, Browning or Moultrie). As I need a game camera merely to record the different species […]

The latest issue of Bushcraft Magazine is out and this time contains a bumper pack of my contributions First off is the cover, which is my photo of a bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) – I feel honoured the editor Steve chose that one. Then there’s my article about the realities of living out here during a […]

It always takes me a while to re-adjust to living in the “back of beyond” (as my friend Dominic calls it) after returning from the UK. The best way, I find, is to spend as much time at the house as possible and go out every day into the forest, or for long country walks, […]

The Drustvo (village cooperative farm) finally got around to cutting the chin-high grass in the meadow behind my house. Trying to navigate through that jungle, either in tracks and furrows I’d created or which large herbivores had made, was a nightmare. I never knew what I’d disturb laying up in it – thankfully just roe […]

Knowing that we’d be away for a week or two, I set the gamecam up in my favourite spot – one which gets no human visitation due to its inaccessibility. Once we’re back at the house for a longer period I’ll move it to higher ground and try and get some big predators. There was […]

As we regularly do, this year we decided to spend a week in Croatia relaxing by the sea. There’s nowhere in Europe quite like it – either for the varied and spectacular scenery or for the crystal clear water. This year we returned to the Isle of Pag, a few miles from the resort town […]

My favourite day of the week is probably Sunday because it means I can sit in my garden and just listen to birdsong without having constant background noise from chainsaws, circular saws, trimmers and other equipment as there is a no-noise policy here one day per week. We have an extremely wide range of wildlife […]

Never a dull day. I could hear something flapping around in the kids’ room and I thought it was the blinds due to the wind. I was wrong. This poor little Swift (Apus apus) (which has a nest just outside and above the window) had got in and was panicking to get out. I wore […]