Writing

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Pleasures of August

August on the Dee Marshes and the Pennine Moors, including encounters with a bolshie pheasant, a practising peregrine, and a flirty wheatear.
Keep a writing journal

…The best writing advice I ever received.
Dipper waiting

With half an hour to kill in Hebden Bridge, I head over to the river to see if there are any dippers around.
Life’s too short for pristine notebooks

How I eventually overcame my reluctance to write in my precious notebooks.
The seahorse and the pelican

How a passage from W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn might give a clue to some family history.
Snapping at swallows

My dad’s dog and I both pursue swallows in our own way.
The advantages of a borrowed dog

One thing I hadn’t really appreciated, when walking dogs in the countryside, is just how much more you can end up seeing.
The great Darwin fossil hunt

For my 50th birthday, a friend beyond compare organised a very special birthday present for the only self-confessed ‘Darwin groupie’ in her life.
Sir Thomas Browne observes a murmuration of starlings

Quote from ‘Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk More Especially on the Birds and Fishes’.
A brush with the mob

In which the local jackdaws and rooks encounter an unusual foe.
On misunderstanding Larkin

It wasn’t until many years after encountering a favourite passage of Larkin’s poetry that I realised I had fundamentally misunderstood his view of photography.
Reading in the Guggenheim

Although I tend not to dabble in street photography, every now and again an opportunity presents itself, and I feel compelled to reach for my camera.