One of the most persistent challenges I’ve faced as a naturalist is in how to pursue my field interests while also fulfilling all my responsibilities as a husband, father, and most recently care-giving child to an elderly, dementia-afflicted parent. Then, of course, to all these as also daily added the constant and seemingly ever-increasing demands […]
Melissa Harrison’s Seasons Anthology quartet has brought me many things since I first began reading it – among which have been delight, rejuvenation, and spiritual guidance, to mention only a few. It has also brought me into an awareness of the work of a number of truly superb contemporary nature writers, prominent among whom is Caroline Greville.
When it comes to iconic British animals, four immediately spring to mind – my mind, at least – the fox, the hedgehog, the dormouse, and the badger. The first of these is, most regrettably, the subject of scorn and the target of hunters, the next two are unrestrainedly beloved, but the last is a bit of a conundrum, being both legally protected and at the same time the subject of a government-directed extermination campaign.