Latest news with #MidsomerMurder
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Brits mesmerised by outlandish bird in gardens after 'deadly rivalries' exposed
Birdwatchers should keep their eyes peeled for the pink hoopoe - a bird with pink plumage, chequerboard wings and a fancy crest that can be spotted in the UK as the mercury rises Nature lovers have every right to feel tickled pink this spring. Candyfloss sunsets and dazzling cherry blossom extravaganzas have left the countryside glowing as if viewed through rose-tinted binoculars. Yet if anything is going to leave birdwatchers blushing with pride, it will be discovering a scarce visitor that outshines Barbie when looking pretty in pink. The hoopoe is one of the most recognisable birds on the planet with its outlandish raspberry yoghurt plumage accentuated by chequerboard wings and fancy crest. Such is its illustriousness, the hoopoe has appeared on more postage stamps than any other bird and the ancient Egyptians used its distinctive profile as a hieroglyph. Many a holidaymaker to the Mediterranean has been mesmerised by sight of a hoopoe strutting around hotel gardens or flapping across an olive grove on butterfly-like wings. Each year, a few score overshoot Iberian nesting grounds and arrive in the UK, often turning up in picture postcard villages to the delight of birders and non-birdwatchers, alike. A myth that has developed over the years is that the best places to find hoopoes are vicarage lawns, the manicured swards perfect to probe for grubs with their long, decurved bills. Midsomer Murder script writers homed in on such bucolic scenes with the Case of the Blue-crested Hoopoe that sparked deadly rivalries among members the Midsomer-in-the-Marsh Ornithological Society. No such need for murder 'most fowl' this spring with its deluge of hoopoe sightings the length and breadth of the British Isles. High pressure and southerly winds over the Bay Biscay in late March fanned a mass arrival likely to number more than 200 birds, including counts of at least nine individuals on the Isles of Scilly. Such an influx has heightened hopes that hoopoes will repeat their 2023 breeding success when three young were raised at a secret location in Leicestershire. With only 30 reported instances of nesting since the 1830s, the sight of more hoopoe fledglings will leave us all feeling in the pink … Can you identify these songbirds in your garden? Don't despair if International Dawn Chorus Day slipped by last week (May 4) without having a chance to immerse yourself in nature's great symphony. This annual celebration held on the first Sunday in May should be regarded as merely the introduction to a joyous season when birdwatchers rest their binoculars to become enthralled listeners. Over coming weeks, the countryside will throb to the songs of thrushes, chats and finches declaring territories under the rising sun. Baritone blackbirds and top tenor nightingales will stand out as virtuoso performers. Yet ask any birdsong purist and it is the orchestral manoeuvres of warblers in the semi darkness that bring the dawn chorus experience to a sensory crescendo. Spring walks through a tapestry of wetlands, woods and scrub can be accompanied by the songs of up to ten species of warbler, belying their dowdy plumages with golden voices. Some, like closely-related reed and sedge warblers, create identification challenges as they chatter away incessantly hour after hour as if on diets of fizzy sweets. Listen carefully and the repeated 'churrs' of the reed warbler help separate it from its jazzier cousin. In damp thickets, the explosive song of the Cetti's warbler is unmistakable and is said to have inspired Mozart to write the opening bars of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Chiffchaff and willow warbler, along with common and lesser whitethroats, are species pairs found around woodland fringes that create visual identification puzzles, although their songs are strikingly different. The chiffchaff sings its name, while the willow warbler has a sweet, descending cadence. Scrub-loving common whitethroats produce a dry, scratchy warble compared to the plain rattle of its smaller relative. Grasshopper warblers have taken rattling to a new level by producing an insect-like trill that reminds you of a fishing reel. For me, the supreme choristers are two of the plainest members of the warbler clan. The blackcap has a thrush-like quality to its voice while the garden warbler's song is full of mimicked notes purloined during its travels between Europe and Africa.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Reeves flashes an awkward smile with the air of Comical Ali
Rachel had graduated from accounts to a massive warehouse full of piping on the edge of the Cotswolds. It looked like the sort of place where a particularly creative Midsomer Murder might happen. No such high campery from the Playmobil Chancellor alas. There are whole acres of forest that remain undisturbed since the Norman Conquest which are less deserving of the epithet 'wooden' than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One can almost imagine Sir Keir getting in touch with his oft-mentioned toolmaking ancestry and carving, like Geppetto, a little wooden apparatchik all of his own. As such, she isn't necessarily the first person you'd put forward for a big morale-boosting speech on growth. Yet here we were, hoping that a beloved British character actor would be crushed by a wheel of cheese or bashed with a croquet mallet in the background by way of light relief. Part of the Chancellor's problem is that she has to begin every speech by saying what an irredeemable bin fire the economy was when she first walked into Number 11. I hope someone has trademarked the use of '£22 billion black hole' and 'disastrous Liz Truss mini-budget'. She then had to perform a rhetorical handbrake turn in order to get us to the sunlit uplands. This she tried to achieve by listing all the brilliant things she'd already done to get the economy into the wonderful state it is now. Ha ha. 'I set up new fiscal rules which are non-negotiable and will always be met,' Reeves asserted, apparently believing that her made-up rules had somehow morphed into the Mosaic Covenant without a hint of irony. She bragged about her begging-bowl trip to China. I sometimes think about the poor CCP-bugging official who is tasked with listening in to her office. It must make the Shipping Forecast sound like 50 Shades of Grey in comparison. She delighted in the creation of a new quango called 'Skills England'. Amid all the predictable bumph there were major policy announcements that will dominate the headlines: support for a new runway at Heathrow, billions for new reservoirs, and a plan to turn the area between Oxford and Cambridge into a new Silicon Valley. It's a sign of the topsy-turvy world that we live in that this latter news will probably be better received by dons over their port in the SCR than it will be by the students at those universities themselves, who are probably planning to lie down in front of bulldozers as we speak. One got the slight sense that these headline-grabbers were the Chancellor's last throw of the dice. Sir Keir hasn't exactly been supportive of his Chancellor and the stress of a job for which it has become clear she is underqualified has been visibly getting to her. Outside, farmers made noisy protests at the spite tax, which the Government is determined to foist on them. There's the slightest air of Comical Ali about each governmental policy launch. All is very obviously not going well. Even today, as she flashed awkward smiles towards the press at the moments where she'd clearly been coached to do so, she looked a little bit like she'd been prepped by an undertaker. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
