Finding a wandering red kite chick on a roadside verge, in a garden or in a field can be worrying. I’ve come across young raptors on more than one walk and learned that staying calm, observing carefully and following a clear set of steps is the best way to help. Below I’ll walk you through...
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Walking across farmland in spring and autumn, I’ve come to depend on more than my eyes to tell the story of the landscape. The soundscape — the calls and songs of birds — is a constant, changing record of what’s happening beneath hedgerows, on stubble fields and along wind-swept lanes. Over...
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I lead a lot of groups on daytime walks, but guiding a youth group on a beginner-friendly night walk is one of my favourite ways to introduce young people to the nocturnal side of the countryside. Night walks can be quietly magical — from the hush of hedgerows to unexpected calls of owls — but...
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The Jurassic Coast is one of my favourite places to poke along the shoreline — dramatic cliffs, fossil-bearing rocks and a rich, ever-changing intertidal world that rewards a slow, curious pace. I love a low-tide scramble: equal parts hiking, light scrambling and careful rock-hopping, with...
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I spend a lot of time crossing open moorland in the UK, and two of the deer species I bump into most often are red deer and fallow deer. At a glance they can seem similar — both are large, tawny, grass-eating mammals that favour open country at times — but once you know what to look for you can...
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