Yesterday was both the summer solstice and a full moon, which meant that it was the extremely rare Strawberry Moon (last one was 70 years ago). Unfortunately, I was in town rather than at the house so light pollution played a part, plus I didn’t have my tripod with me so there is feathering due […]

After a stressful and very busy week with all the kids away at various times in different countries visiting capital cities on school trips, and a lengthy drive into Poland to get some diagnostics done on my Vlochka, my Discovery, we only managed to squeeze one night in at the house. Thankfully, the weather was […]

On the news here there was an interesting piece about a large cat, Beast of Bodmin style, which had been filmed in Eastern Slovakia, just 15 miles from where I live, close to the town of Bardejov. The attached photograph is a still from the video shown on the news site – http://www.noviny.sk/c/slovensko/nezname-zviera-sa-objavilo-nedaleko-bardejova-podla-odbornikov-ide-o-selmu. Experts have […]

Make sure you order a copy of Bushcraft Magazine. This Spring 2016 edition is the 10th anniversary issue and features both an article of mine (Watch out, there are boar about!) and a couple of my true forest horror stories. You can order a copy here – http://bushcraft-magazine.co.uk/. Like it says on the cover – […]

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 […]

This weekend was supposed to be very wet and we almost didn’t go to the house. France and Germany have both had floods and we were expecting the same. However, despite the occasional short, hard downpour, it was scorching hot. My garden is completely overgrown but this week I discovered that the engine of my […]

For the last few days we’ve had nothing but rain. During early summer we get scorching hot mornings and then massive storms in the afternoons. Today while out checking my trail camera I was surrounded by Fire Salamanders (Salamandra salamandra). These are one of my favourite creatures in the Carpathian Forests. They’re very slow, docile […]