You will of course be familiar with my distaste for the popular tendency to anthropomorphise animals – not merely because of a grumpy, jaundiced outlook on the world in general and mankind in particular, but because that’s not what wildlife is really about – it’s a human-centric way of looking at the world, and look …
I wish I hadn’t used the sophisticated and witty wisecrack, “call me butter because I’m on a roll” the other day, because it turns out that at the moment, I’m . . . well, on a roll. Except now I can’t call myself butter without unfunnily repeating said bon mot. So, moving right along, the …
Yesterday I thought I saw a platypus! This deserves an exclamation mark due to its unexpectedness – I didn’t set out to find one, but to paraphrase the Bard, some people achieve platypus and some have platypus thrust upon them. I hadn’t given platypi much thought – there was a vague notion that they were …
One of the familiar phenomena arising from the COVID-19 lockdown is the iso-beard. Chaps and chums all over the globe, liberated from the repressive regime of grooming for work, have thrown in the razor and joyfully sprouted facial fungus. On a recent four-way Zoom with some UK mates, three participants were sporting some degree of …
Remember that stuff I wrote about Adam in the Garden of Eden, and how in his pre-Eve bachelorhood he spent his time wandering about giving things names? It was also pre the serpent and banishment into the harsh world, so very much a state of grace. It’s an attractive idea – apart from the nudity, …
Remember that movie about the people who spent all their time driving across the continental USA in pursuit of tornados? Twister, I seem to recall it being titled. It depicted the lives and loves of people so obsessed with extreme weather phenomena that they’d risk life, limb and ute to hunt a tornado and subject …
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘goat’? It’s an animal with a wealth of associations, and many not that positive: lust, gluttony and evil – in Western culture, anyway. They’re known to be nimble-footed – think mountain goat – and for climbing stuff. Hold that thought. Our family, collectively and individually, …
When you think about the animal kingdom there are hierarchies just like in most systems – different exemplars of the type can be arranged into descending order according to various attributes they may display. Sometimes it’s handy in making sense of the whole by arranging its constituents in this way: big to small, hot to …
Incredible scenes today at Corner Cottage as a seasonal milestone is attained with due fanfare and celebration. As spring flourishes outdoors, with flowers unfolding, leaves unfurling, birds revealing their finest mating-season plumage, it is time for your aged correspondent to disclose his long-hidden shanks by the ritual donning of shorts. Let’s leave aside for now …
There’s an obvious topic for this blog which I’ve been reading around without really committing to, and that’s because it’s a serious, huge and complex subject. I’ve touched on it briefly when speculating about the names of creeks – but there’s just so much more to be uncovered, especially to a newbie in this fascinating …
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