About this blog
The articles
The aim of this blog is to produce short, informative and entertaining articles on British Wildlife, based on scientific fact and personal experience. The aim is to offer interesting and inspirational little insights into the natural world within our islands for people of all levels of expertise. The articles will appear twice weekly on WEDNESDAYS and FRIDAYS.
Since this is mostly stuff I’ve picked up as I went along, the articles are mainly informal and unreferenced. Where I have done recent research and/or a reference is really required I have done it with an easy to follow numerical system, like this: Bullfinches fed on hempseed turn black 1
1 Gilbert White. (1768) In: The Natural History of
Selbourne.
This avoids it becoming a drag for me (I' ve enough research and referencing to do at uni before my summer break!), and hopefully makes easier reading for you.
Half the fun of this blog are the accompanying pictures.I do not claim to be an artist, I just like sketching, and the pictures will simply be pencil and fineliner pen but hopefully they will keep you amused. Many of them may be confusing without reading the accompanying article.
I assure you all articles will be safe for work (depending on your bosses attitude to naturalists), and child-safe if they're interested too.
The content
First-off, I'm not interested in the "cute and cuddly" at heart. Though I appreciate all wildlife, I am a lover of the “weirder” things in nature (aka creepy-crawlies),particularly reptiles and amphibians.
BUT, as an experiment, I have decided to go with birds first A- Because there are so
many British species, and B- Because they are so popular.
So, for a bit of fun and structure, I have decided to present:
An Avian Alphabet of
the British Isles.
26 Posts over 13 weeks- Wednesdays and Fridays
As you can probably tell, the articles will be in alphabetical order, focusing on one species This may be by common name or by scientific name where they are the only member of their genus in the UK. For example, the Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) could be K or A.
So, I hope you will enjoy this blog as much as I enjoyed creating it.
