cuckoo
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Nature Notes
Swallows and Gold Days. There is an absence of Swallows. A solitary bird returned to the wires at Coldharbour Farm a month ago and has only just been joined by another. I’ve seen others passing through, a brief gloss of navy blue, the twitter of several birds issued from one red throat; but the mud […]
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Nature Notes
Cherry Dew. The scent of cherry laurel in the keepered woods is a sensory mnemonic: it triggers a search. The bluebells are emerging where the canopy is native and open and, near the badger sett, I go looking for toothwort and find it. A ghostly wildflower that lacks chlorophyll and springs from tree roots, it […]
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Nature Notes
A Hill from Home The children are at mum’s and we have run to the hills – the Tors of Dartmoor, to be exact. But it seems we have homed in on a familiar shape. From our starting point in pretty South Zeal, the ‘Dome of Dartmoor’ looms against a blessedly fair sky that I […]