So, as is traditional at this time of year, we went on holiday. Put briefly, the idea was to make our way to the UK to reunite with friends and family not seen since before the pandemic. For a variety of reasons we need not concern ourselves with now, we decided to go in short, …
Well, yesterday was the last day of spring, not that you'd know it from the chill and damp days behind us. It's been less the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, and more the muted chesty cough of a secret TB sufferer. Thank you climate change, and thank you La Niña. Three …
All this reminiscing about weird ways to make a living has your author recalling a sure-fire narrative to spin during job interviews. It's a secret so powerful, using it will guarantee you a fast track to the C-suite in the global planet-destroying multinational corporation of your choice -- so use it wisely. And this is …
We interrupt this unstarted sequence of my oddball jobs to tell you about something a little closer to home. While the odd jobs may turn out to be an interesting bunch of stories which will be fun to resurrect, it has very little to do with embracing life in Braidwood, which is what this blog …
It may be that you have gained an impression from all this Braidwood-centric content that the raptor obsession is a new thing. You would be wrong! In fact, birds of prey have long fascinated me, and once or twice over the years have been the subject of my probing lens. Possibly the first time the …
Spring is in the process of springing: the magpies are engaging in aerial flirtations, the grey fantails are displaying, and today I snapped a new bird for my list, the tiny Spotted Pardalote, busily engaged in collecting nesting material. But with these hopeful signs, it seems the local raptors' habits are changing. This isn't based …
It's winter now -- and following the freakishly wet summer we've just endured, we're experiencing some deep cold, such that Archie's water bowl freezes overnight and we keep the fire going all day. When it comes to local wildlife -- particularly the feathered kind -- I expected a bit of a dearth, with all the …
When I said these little birds grow up fast, I had no idea just how much. On sneaking up to the nest last Monday morning, I noted immediately that it was empty. Not the kind of empty you'd see when the chicks were tiny (all of three weeks ago) and no parent was sitting on …
If there's one thing you get used to by the time you reach my ripe old age, it's being making errors. Being mistaken, getting the wrong end of the stick, failure to comprehend -- I've had a wealth of opportunities to do all these things. Let's avoid all the truisms about failure being the path …
You can't spend too much time away from a Willie Wagtail's brood because by God, they grow up fast. It's five days since we noted the joyful arrival of the chicks -- and scrawny, bald and unappealing little scraps they were, too. So we took a turn down to Commonwood this lunchtime to catch up …
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