A rather short column this week, I’m afraid. ROAMING round YouTube, I came across this extraordinary clip. These are some of the 1,100 Indian Runner ducks employed by the Vergenoegd Löw Vineyard in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Every day they are let out to patrol the vines and feast on the snails and pests, reducing the need for pesticides […]
THE other day I was pleased to see half a dozen redwings busily turning over leaves in the field at the back of our house. It is quite a few years since I have seen any. They are winter visitors from Scandinavia and are the equivalent of our song thrush. Here is a redwing (Turdus iliacus): […]
Another repeat this week, with some updates at the end. This article was first published on April 4, 2021. FOR a change, I am going to write about something I have never seen in the seven years or so we have lived in Lancashire. Before this we were in the south-east London suburbs of Beckenham […]
I haven’t written a new column this week, so with the weather so grim – from sub-zero temperatures round the clock to gales to torrential rain – I thought it would be good to repeat one to remind us of summer. This was first published on September 5, 2021. DURING the summer there are usually […]
This week I am handing over the first item to JEREMY CRAIG-WESTON. LIKE many other people living and growing up in Oldham, in the foothills of the Pennines in Lancashire, I’ve been roaming the local countryside without accident or incident or altercation with anyone for over 50 years and am by now reasonably familiar with […]
On our return from the festive break, I am handing over the first item once more to DEREK REYNOLDS. WHAT is it about sheds? My wife has a shed in our garden; it’s almost buried in ivy and clematis, and inside are the remains of charity shop window displays that she has created and is […]
While Notes from the Sticks is having a short break, we are repeating some previous columns. This was first published on February 13, 2022. UNTIL a few weeks ago, all I had seen of kingfishers was a very occasional bright blue streak flying low and fast over water. Then one appeared on a rock in […]
While Notes from the Sticks is having a short break, we are repeating some previous columns. This was first published on December 4, 2022. WHEN we lived in the London suburbs, I would occasionally see clumps of mistletoe in trees, but it doesn’t often grow as far north as Lancashire. It is hard to see […]
While Notes from the Sticks is having a short break, we are repeating some previous columns. This was first published on March 19, 2023. COMMENTERS sometimes reminisce about the late TV presenter Jack Hargreaves, so I thought I would recall few of his programmes. I have to admit that I don’t really remember him, but […]
This is a repeat of a post which was first published on January 17, 2021. I AM not sure if I have ever seen a stoat. Since we have been in Lancashire I have glimpsed one or two animals which could have been stoats but at a distance they could equally have been weasels. Many people […]
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