There’s a big, dome-shaped mound on my regular walk through the local pine forest. Light brown, it’s seemingly made of soil but, on closer inspection, it’s covered in a thatch of heather, pine needles, moss and dirt. Although its summit stands higher than my waist, it makes for a surprisingly inconspicuous feature because, even a few metres away, it’s well hidden behind the heather that flanks it. You could therefore be forgiven for not really noticing mounds like this, huge as they are. For the past five months, the mound has been still and lifeless. But today is that rarest…

Winter nights are rather quiet affairs, but I’d forgotten just how quiet they were until a familiar sound pierced one of them last week while I was out for a torchlit stroll. Huuuuu……..Huh….Huhuhuhuuuuuu. It sailed through the chill night air, clear and sharp, from somewhere within the dark recesses of a granny pine. I stopped in my tracks and waited for a repeat, which duly came after 10 seconds or so. Huuuuu….. I waited, listening for the familiar response. A short moment later a fainter, more distant sound, high pitched and squawky, called out. Kewick!…….Kewick! Tawny owls. The walls of…

I’ve had my trail camera out at home recently. Now it’s getting colder, I’ve been investigating what creatures are milling about outside the house, in search of warmth or food. Last winter there were various rodents and shrews sneaking under the porch door, so I rather expected to see something similar this time. Maybe a red squirrel foraging nearby. Tawny owls on the fence posts. Or, given they have left conspicuous scat on the road, pine martens. But no. After the first night, I looked through the new videos and they all showed one of two brown hares, nibbling grass…

Have you ever tried to creep up on a cuckoo? I’ve tried repeatedly over the years but it’s nigh on impossible. I suspect even the SAS would struggle. Cuckoos are impossibly flighty, and somehow also evade being precisely pinpointed by your ear. A vague direction can be discerned, but when you think you’re getting close, the call suddenly seems to come from another direction entirely. It could be another cuckoo of course, but more often than not, your target cuckoo has simply taken flight and moved to a new location. You didn’t see it move because….well….what would that even look…

Keen hill walker Maja Staerke takes a peek below the waves as she explains why she now loves to combine snorkeling off the Scottish coast with exploring on foot. Snorkeling probably does not come to mind when you think about Scotland. Even though the country is blessed with some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, the water temperature is anything but balmy. From around 5C during the coldest winter months to about 15C in the height of summer, it’s a test of endurance to stay in the water for any length of time. Which makes the commonly asked question ‘Isn’t…

Frogs or toads? A simple choice, one that I put to Twitter last week to gauge people’s feelings towards these two amphibians. I was motivated partly by the fact that the spring amphibian emergence is underway and I very much welcome their return, but mainly I was motivated by a desire to see to what proportion of people shared my preference. Just for the record, I do of course acknowledge that this is an absurdly reductionist way of looking at these two wonderful creatures. But yes, I hereby declare I am a fully paid up member of Team Toad. I…