A charm of goldfinches

As work on transforming the bare garden into a wildlife friendly haven continues, the addition of a bird feeding station is the latest project which has been keeping me occupied in recent weeks. There was one bird in particular I was especially keen to entice, my favourite of all our british birds the stunning goldfinch….

Blackbird in the bathroom

There is a lot of bird life in our new neighbourhood and many homes which own several cats, ours included. I always find myself very torn by the debate about outdoor cats and their affect on wildlife, as cat owner and bird lovers it’s always a heartbreaking moment when one brings home the latest victim…

Growing pains

This summer I enjoyed one of the most rewarding encounters with some of my favourite birds, the often underappreciated mallard ducks. The journey began with a chance encounter with a newly hatched brood of eight mallard ducklings… I first encountered the ducklings at just a few hours old when they were tiny and extremely vulnerable….

Sighting: Otter

The otter has always been one of my favourite creatures, but being such an elusive animals and still relatively rare here in the UK, I never expected to see one in the wild. That was until reports began to surface on local wildlife groups of a new resident on the nearby waterways. As more and…

Winter waders

Winter is a great time to see migrant birds here on the coast of Aberystwyth. Birds such as turnstones who arrive here from their homes in the northern Canada and Greenland, to enjoy the relative warmth of our shores until spring returns to the Arctic Circle. A turnstone in winter/non-breeding plumage I don’t have to…

Sighting: Wren

The wren is the most common breeding bird in the UK with an estimated 8.5 million birds. Unsurprisingly then, you can find wrens just about anywhere from farms and woodlands to our gardens and urban spaces. I last saw a wren down in the harbour ‘gap’ a few years ago, but after several months this…

Deja vu

Bird photography often requires a lot of patience and many hours of sitting in silence, hardly moving, sometimes in the freezing cold or in some pretty uncomfortable situations and even then you are rewarded with nothing but a fleeting glimpse of your subject. Sometimes however you have a lucky break and the wildlife literally wanders…

World Kindness Day

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” ― Mahatma Gandhi As today is World Kindness Day what better way to spend the morning than to spread a little kindness myself by feeding the local bird population. I have a particular affection for the…

Opportunists

The humble house sparrow may not be the most glamorous of our garden birds, lacking the showy colours of the blue tit or the twinkling song of the goldfinch, but nevertheless they have a beauty and charm all of their own. Several weeks ago, during a spot of lunch at a peaceful riverside cafe we…

The Magic of Life Butterfly House

It was one of those rare Saturdays where both myself and Barrie had a day off together, with the added bonus of glorious sunshine! Keen not to waste the fine weather we decided to visit the Magic of Life butterfly house, just a few miles outside of Aberystwyth. After a short drive through the rolling…

Late arrivals

Summer is almost at an end and the breeding season is now over for much of our wildlife. The mallards here in Aberystwyth however appear to be having a late boom, with several new broods including this adorable bunch I encountered a few days ago. After the disappointment of the mute swans’ breeding failure this…

A helping hand

I am a great believer that you can find nature everywhere, providing you take the time to look for it. Sometimes however nature quite literally turns up on your doorstep, like this minuscule damselfly which found itself trapped inside my front porch a few days ago. It was a blue-tailed damselfly, a common species which…