natural history
From pets to pests: cats, rabbits and now raccoons
I was shocked some years ago to discover, as I scratched bites on my ankles on holiday on Maui, that…
Pigeons are plucky and loyal — so don’t go poisoning them in the park
Growing up as a rootless army brat in bases home and abroad, I would listen in appalled delight to my…
Busy beavers: in praise of man’s natural ally
The British experience of beavers is somewhat limited. Most of us haven’t been lucky enough to have spied an immigrant…
Wonder is all around
Different people find different things impressive. Some claim, for instance, to experience a sense of wonder at the fact of…
Should we all stop eating pork?
‘Rightly is they called pigs,’ says a farmworker in Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow as he watches porkers grunt and squelch.…
The newly refurbished Natural History Museum is glorious
Sometimes, it pays to rediscover what’s already under your nose. I’ve been umpteen times to the Natural History Museum but…
An English hen harrier makes a fabulous heroine
I often feel slightly sorry for the British nature writer. It’s not an attractive emotion — it sounds patronising —…
Man and horse - the end of a special relationship?
Sam Leith canters through a fascinating, if eccentric, history of man’s long partnership with the horse
Hans Sloane collected everything – from acupuncture kits to zebras
Hans Sloane’s passion for collecting led to the foundation = of the British Museum. But missing – until now – has been the man himself, says Jonathan Keates
The terrible beauty of snow
Here is William Diaper in 1722, translating Oppian’s Halieuticks (a Greek epic poem on the loves of the fishes): As…
The lonely genius of Beatrix Potter
The story of the extraordinary boom in children’s literature over the last 100 years could be bookended with a ‘Tale…
Charles Foster: ‘I need to be more of a badger’
Being a Beast is an impassioned and proselytising work of philosophy based on a spectacular approach to nature writing. That…
The Luangwa is far from being a happy valley
Simon Barnes opens with a presumably true idea, that we are all in search of our own versions of paradise…
A piece of primeval England reborn in Sussex
A piece of ancient England is being reborn around a castle in Sussex
Bigger, better bedbugs bite back with a vengeance
‘Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,’ my mother used to say when she tucked me in at…
All in the name of science: three young naturalists go on an Amazonian killing-spree
John Hemming is our greatest living scholar-explorer. He is best known for his extraordinary first book The Conquest of the…
To be astonished by nature, look no further than Claxton
Mark Cocker is the naturalist writer of the moment, with birds his special subject. His previous book, Birds and People,…
The British countryside in prints and paper-cuts
The Yale Center for British Art holds the largest collection of British art outside the UK. An impressive collection it…
Read this book and you’ll see why our meadows are so precious
This book is a portrait of one man’s meadow. Our now almost vanished meadowland, with its tapestry of wildflowers, abundant…
How we lost the seasons
... for tomorrow traditional seasonal rituals may just be ghostly memories of a vanished world, says Melanie McDonagh
A badger eats, squats, thieves. But should we cull them?
Lord Arran was responsible for the bill to legalise homosexuality and a bill to protect badgers from gassing and terrier-baiting.…
England’s 100 best Views, by Simon Jenkins - review
Sam Leith is transported by the finest scenery in England
Birds & People, by Mark Cocker - review
‘A world without birds would lay waste the human heart,’ writes Mark Cocker. Following his Birds Britannica and prize-winning Crow…
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