Clatto Country Park is a great place to spot wildlife. At this time of year look out for colourful jays in the woods as they busily collect nuts to store for the winter. They are shy birds and hard to approach close.
The water by this rocky shore at Kingsbarns near St Andrews had churned into a white froth, such was the ferocity of the wind and the turmoil of the waves.
I am writing a book on a wildlife year on the River Devon in Clackmannanshire – but I had a problem, for a large stretch of the lower river is relatively inaccessible by foot.
It was a case of summer meets winter; skeins of honking pink-footed geese high in the sky above Loch Leven, but wildflowers still in bloom down by the track edge, with bees, hoverflies and other insects eagerly gorging themselves upon the late-season nectar.
Many ‘microspecies’ of bramble occur in Britain, each one differing slightly from each other in terms of fruiting time, size, texture and taste.
Alpine meadows located at 1800 to 2200 metres above sea level can support up to 80 species of plant per 100 square metres and support an incredible diversity of insects and other invertebrates.
When rockpooling always be aware of what the tide is doing in case you get cut off.
Scotland is home to around 60% of Europe’s northern gannets. The world’s biggest colony is on the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, with over 150,000 birds present during the breeding season.
Oystercatchers are adaptable birds, and at a time when most of our wader species are in decline, they seem to be holding their own, with some having taken to nesting on flat roofs in our towns and cities.
The wood ant’s main food is sugary honeydew produced by aphids, which the worker ants ‘milk’ from them.