IT has been a dispiriting nesting season so far. I had high hopes for the lapwings after last year’s success, but they have been struggling to breed. We were seeing them regularly a couple of weeks ago, but had yet to identify any nests, which we would then have fenced off against grazing cattle and foraging badgers. Sadly, the lapwing parents were spending so much time in the air mobbing the crows that I fear they have decided to cut their losses and try elsewhere. We are doing what we can to control the crows with Larsen traps, but there seem to be a lot of them this year. Perhaps that is because bird flu cut such a swathe through the buzzards and red kites that the corvids have fewer enemies themselves.
Then, on April 17, to great excitement, a white stork—other storks are available— appeared in our fields. I tweeted a video of the bird gracefully stalking, or even storking, about, snacking on frogs near a large puddle in the middle of the field, where the water accumulates in a wet time. The twitchers duly descended on us the next morning and the bird obliged them by staying around so that it could have its photograph taken before flying off up the Nith Estuary like a large white-and-black hang-glider.
Denne historien er fra May 17, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 17, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
