Natural History Journal

Last June, Eric and I had the opportunity to spend the month in the UK, taking in its incredible natural beauty and rich history.  A few of our favorite days were spent in the Yorkshire Dales, where we enjoyed a cool, drizzly hike up onto bleak but beautiful Grassington Moor.  Here, high above the verdant pastures, the rocky, heather-covered hills were wild and rugged, and the birds were both abundant and interesting!  European Golden-Plover One of the most abundant species we saw on the moors (as well as in other habitats throughout the UK) was the Meadow Pipit, a close relative of our familiar American Pipit.  Meadow Pipit Meadow Pipit A species I wasn't expecting to find on these moors was Northern Wheatear - and we stumbled across a whole family of them, with recently-fledged young! Northern Wheatear Northern Wheatears are birds of open country, breeding in treeless habitats like rocky tundra and the UK's high moorlands.  Previously, I've encountered these p...

While we began our trip across the UK last June in London, we certainly didn't stay there!  Though the city offered a surprising amount of birds and other wildlife , and was a convenient base for a trip out to wetlands in the Thames estuary for even more encounters with nature, we were eager to travel north, where we would spend time rambling through the quiet countryside and impossibly picturesque villages of the Cotswolds and Yorkshire Dales.   Mute Swan, an iconic British bird, in front of Bibury's idyllic Arlington Row. We stayed in a few different small villages as we made our way north to Scotland, and greatly enjoyed the UK's delightful network of footpaths that wind endlessly through the countryside linking one charming hamlet to another.  From Bourton-on-the-Water, in the Cotswolds, we followed parts of the Monarch's Way; in the Yorkshire Dales, we trekked along the Dale's Way from our base in Grassington; and near Haltwhistle, we climbed steep sections of...

Worldwide, wetlands are among the most species-rich habitats on our planet, home to a wealth of birds and other wildlife.  Open water of varying depths, with emergent vegetation alongside mudflats bordered by diverse plant communities, including forest edge and grassland, typically make wetlands and adjacent habitat absolutely ideal homes for a high concentration of wildlife in a relatively small space.  It's no coincidence that around the world, many of the nature reserves and preserves that have been set aside as protected habitat for wildlife are wetlands . Singing Reed Bunting at Rainham Marshes In the UK, this protected habitat is often administered by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, or the Wildlife Trusts.  (If you are in the UK, I highly recommend checking out the map tool on their respective websites to find  an RSPB reserve  or a Wildlife Trust nature reserve to visit near you!  There are so many to choose from!) As we planned our t...