Nicola Chester

Nature Writer and Activist

adders

  • Nature Notes

    Felling Sticks Walk. Bird nesting season and they’re chainsawing the wood. And not any old wood (is there such a thing?) but ours. Our wood. And they are not just chainsawing it. They are eating it up and spitting it out in random patterns with enormous forestry machinery that looks apocalyptic: giant grabs, shears and […]

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  • Nature Notes

    The Wild Other. ‘Between the laundry and fetching the kids from school, that’s how birds enter my life’. This quote from writer and poet Kathleen Jamie, orbits my more reflective, mindful moments. Especially when I find myself in, when I’d perhaps rather be out. It’s a wry reminder and a comfort that actually, this is […]

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  • Nature Notes

    The Stoat, the Vivarium and the White Owl. Summer holidays and my days are freer. There are some days when I can meander at will. A stoat pops up by the white barn, sees me and doubles back, like water through a u-bend. I wait. A triangular face appears; bright eyes, chocolate-drop nose, long cream […]

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  • Nature Notes

    Strokes of Havoc … An evening walk takes me past gloriously uncut verges of ox-eye daisies, buzz and insects – but this is a perilous joy. Just as nature is at its most vibrant, productive and protective (of bees, butterflies, the unnamed, sustaining bugs, nestlings, voles, and even leverets, hedge hoglets and fawns) so many […]

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