And so to the sharks that enter the waters of the British Isles… Whilst most spend their time well offshore and are rare or irregular visitors, it excites me that there are more than 30 shark species who live or venture into our waters. The Great British Sharks! In popular culture, worldwide, shark diversity tends […]
Great British Sharks part 2 Read More »
Are we surrounded by sharks? Sharks in our consciousness If you live inland and especially in the British Isles, you probably have little reason to think about sharks. That doesn’t mean you don’t think about them, just that you don’t have to. I read a statistic from the 1980s saying that, at any one time, there
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Spider Face Off So how did an obsession with spider faces begin? When I was 14, my arachnophobic Mum came home from work one late October evening and handed me (the arachnophilic little monster she’d created) a book that she’d spotted in the library. Hallowe’en was approaching, we shared a love of it. Perhaps she
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The Joy of Bees Honey bee swarms can occur anytime from mid-spring, through the summer. From my experience, they peak in July and quickly reduce as the month fades, with August swarms quite rare. I’ve always been fascinated by bees and started beekeeping when I was 16. My mentor was my first boss and he
Porpoisfully looking at Dol-Fins When we’re lucky enough to see dolphins (or unidentified cetaceans), it’s not always easy to tell which species they are. Sometimes they leap clear or poke their heads out of the water but, more often than not, all we see is a dorsal fin and a bit of back with no
Head-foot, ink-jet brainy suckers – The Cephalopods of the British Isles Many people don’t have a clue what a cephalopod is. Even if their Greek and Latin is good the translation to ‘head-foot’ isn’t writhing with firm answers. But almost all people know what octopus and squid are and most have at least heard of
Seahorse Conservation In the early 1990s I helped found the Fish and Aquatic Invertebrate Advisory Group for what was then the Zoo Federation of Britain and Ireland (now BIAZA). I also designed the logo. Among our first project species were seahorses. Not only were they in dire need of conservation attention and awareness, they are
Stormy weather lures me outside I do love the summer but I really, really love the winter storms. Finding something as exotic as a columbus crab is a rare treat. Beachcombing in the dark with the wind howling and the waves crashing is exhilarating enough. But the chances of finding something increase it. The excitement
Castaways and the Columbus Crab Read More »
‘Christian’ Plants that reconnect us with our pagan ancestors A celebration of festive evergreens. To most people reading this, it’s the run up to Christmas, a time of merriment and celebration. Along with dutiful communications, fear of offence and panic shopping. Here in north west Europe, religions have tied in with early seasonal traditions. We
Festive Evergreens Read More »
An introduction to echinoderms and their weird and wonderful lives. Have you ever lost touch with a relative? It’s a rhetorical question really because you and I are related but our ancestors lost touch hundreds or even thousands of years ago. It is, in biological terms, meant to happen, we are made both to disperse
