CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

A second day of New Year Plant Hunting, this time along the banks of the river Wear and along woodland edges and hedges. Nineteen species i...

We found this tiny 22-spot ladybird on a dead hogweed stem in Teesdale a couple of days ago.  Teesdale is close to the  northern limit...

I was so cold  and shivering so much when we walked along the river Wear near Durham this afternoon that I could hardly h...

I hadn't really realised what an amazing summer this must be if you happen to be a slug, until we went out for a walk after heavy rain ...

A snowfall has a wonderful tendency to turn pieces of natural architecture into something magical.... ... and to sprinkle a bit of magic ov...

Last week we spent a few days in Galloway where, down on the Mull of Galloway we found several of these stunning rose chafer beetles Cetoni...

This ungainly looking fly with a long, straight proboscis is Empis tessellata , seen here feeding on hogweed nectar. That isn't its onl...

Hogweed umbels attract all manner of insect visitors, including this very striking fly Tachina fera, which has a gruesome life history. It...

Hogweed umbels are a hive of activity at this time of year, with a constant procession of insects arriving on the flat plates of flowers ...

Hogweed Heracleum sphondylium Sweet cicely Myrrhis odorata The carrot family (Umbelliferae) includes several species with seeds that co...

One of the advantages of compact pocket digital cameras is that they offer amazing depth of field in images. Another is that they make it ea...