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Richard Carter

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Featured Articles

A personal selection of my favourite articles. To access all of my writing, please visit the Writing section.

19 July 2020

Comet Neowise
Comet Neowise over Old Town Mill, Hebden Bridge

Weeding, and a spot of comet-watching.

Published 19-Jul-2020
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: astronomy, barn owls, Calder Valley, Darwin book, Hebden Bridge, plants

Bats podcast piece

New moon, Mercury and Venus setting over Heptonstall

I make a guest appearance in episode 16 of Melissa Harrison’s podcast ‘The Stubborn Light of Things’. Here’s an extended version.

Published 16-Jul-2020
Filed under: Featured Articles, News, Published Pieces Tags: bats, mammals, Melissa Harrison, podcasts

27 April 2020

Roe buck

A wonderful day’s wildlife.

Published 27-Apr-2020
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: archaeology, barn owls, birds, Calder Valley, coronavirus, curlews, garden, goat willows, Hebden Bridge, insects, kestrels, lapwings, mammals, meadow pipits, mistle thrushes, red grouse, roe deer, skylarks, stonechats, swallows, the Moor, trig point 4144, videos, wheatears

High tides and volant voles

An unplanned visit to the flooded Dee Marshes is rewarded with a wildlife spectacle.

Published 04-Jan-2018
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: birds, black-headed gulls, Dee Marshes, expeditions, favourite places, gulls, proto-sidelines, voles, water rails, Wirral

Orion’s belt-buckle

Orion
A small section of the Milky Way galaxy (Orion's Belt, centre).

In celebration of my adopted star.

Published 20-Jun-2017
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: astronomy, reminiscences, science

‘Spiritual’ won’t do

Trig point

In which I seek a better word to describe a profoundly uplifting sensation.

Published 23-Apr-2017
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: humanism, religion, skepticism, the Moor

The joy of the familiar—and the unfamiliar—on a local patch

Hen harrier
Female hen harrier.

Getting to know a place well means knowing what to look forward to, and appreciating when something unusual happens.

Published 11-Nov-2016
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: birds, Calder Valley, favourite places, flowers, golden plovers, harebells, heather, Hebden Bridge, hen harriers, kestrels, lapwings, meadow pipits, red grouse, snipe, swallows, the Moor, wheatears, Yorkshire

An irrelevance in the landscape

Puffin Island
Looking towards Puffin Island, Anglesey.

On the realisation that the natural world gets on perfectly well without us.

Published 03-Oct-2016
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: Anglesey, birds, cormorants, dolphins, favourite places, gannets, grey seals, gulls, herring gulls, Manx shearwaters, nature waiting, oystercatchers, turnstones, Wales

Turtles of the air

Swifts

What links sea-turtles, swifts, and railway viaducts? Plus some handy ornithological photo tips.

Published 31-May-2016
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: birds, Calder Valley, evolution, Hebden Bridge, photography, proto-sidelines, science, swifts, Tobago, turtles, Yorkshire

A monument to lethargy

Our driveway
Our driveway.

Sloth is a much-maligned sin, as our driveway demonstrates.

Published 30-May-2016
Filed under: Featured Articles, Writing Tags: Calder Valley, flowers, garden, Hebden Bridge, proto-sidelines, rough patches, Yorkshire

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RECENT NEWSLETTERS

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    Thoughts on nature writing · Richard Feynman · Vikings! · Bronze Age diets · recovered daguerreotypes · transit of Phobos · Alice Roberts · Cal Flyn
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    The Pros and Cons of tying the knot · prehistoric invention · Ernest Shackleton · W.G. Sebald · swallows · comma splices · Amy Liptrot · Kapka Kassabova
  • Newsletter No. 26: ‘Slits for pupils’
    Research triage · filing your nuggets · pupil shapes · Amy Liptrot · moths and bats · critical reading · early medieval history · Tim Dee · book reviews

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    A trip to Ireland.
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    A bad night’s sleep has unforeseen benefits.
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    There is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to whatever ‘nature writing’ is supposed to be these days. It might not all be to my personal taste, but such diversity has to be a good thing.

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    To mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, a brief account of Rev. Gilbert White’s influence on Charles Darwin.

NEWS

  • 2021: a year in photos
    My eleventh annual video slideshow.
  • HebWeb interview
    I have been interviewed for the local HebWeb site.

RECENT READING

RECENT PHOTOS

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Richard Carter

The whole is greater than some of its parts