Latest news with #UndertheChangingSkies:
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: This month has belonged to the moles
For the past month I've been studying molehills. The focus of my investigations has been Sand Field, a rough pasture that was once part of a vast medieval deer park just south of the village. It all started last November. It was a crisp morning after gales. I'd paused to feel the sun's weak warmth and heard a rustle in the grass. Already fleeing, a mole was little more than a glimpsed cylinder of fur and rippling muscle. I felt a rush of excitement – it was just the second I'd ever seen. I'd almost forgotten this encounter. Then, returning last month, I stumbled – literally – on a fresh molehill. Instead of waiting a decade to bump into another mole, I thought, perhaps I should make some effort to understand them. The signs of their business are everywhere, after all. When a mole tunnels, displaced soil is eventually pushed to the surface. Like a tube map without lines, patterns of heaped spoil hint at the winding routes below. I'm monitoring six such territories, and I've found a tunnel entrance in two of them. It's peak breeding season, so these may mark where roving males have emerged, off in search of a mate. In another spot, my photos capture a major extension of the network: a row of 11 new mounds. These are testament to the mole's extraordinary physical adaptations. Moles raise soil – up to 20 times their own body weight – by shoving it above their heads. The muscles in a mole's chest and shoulders are so big that it has evolved a strengthened and extended sternum to anchor them. Elongated wrist bones add a wide flange, resembling a sixth digit, to the hands that do the lifting and digging. Molehills can be a nuisance. Like weeds, they're largely ignored until they pop up in unwanted places, offending our sense of control. Yet they also connect us to the teeming life beneath our feet. Across some of the older mounds, the leaves and stolons of creeping buttercup lay delicate traceries. Fresher excavations are laced with fine roots, mycelium and upturned worms. In one, I found a queen early bumble bee (Bombus pratorum). Muddied and slow, she was likely to have been hibernating when the mole's labours thrust her prematurely into spring. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Yahoo
Country diary: Divers, porpoises and otters – this is a kinetic wildlife spot
I'm two weeks into a trip to Luing – pronounced 'Ling' – in the Firth of Lorn in Argyll and Bute. From my 'office' on a slate beach of the best skimmers in the world, I've witnessed beautiful sunsets, wild storms, snow and horizontal rain. Beneath me are thousands of sea-worn slates of all sizes, spoil from the long-gone mines of this Slate Isles archipelago. The Vikings used these waters long before the merchantmen and navy vessels, and there are still a few lobster men plying their trade here. I first landed in 1971 and have regularly seen porpoises, bottlenose dolphins, minke whales and, on occasion, basking sharks, but no trip here is complete without otters. This time, the first ones surfaced during the two-minute ferry across Cuan Sound, soon followed by two more enjoying the flume ride along a spring water runnel, a 'sheugh', towards the open sea. Amid the splashing and spluttering as they blew across the surface of the water like kids in a bath, they drew me on through a lush flush of wild watercress which I collected to later make soup with. They led me to the remains of an earlier catch being cleaned up by gulls, with a white‑tailed sea eagle watching on. The big bird looked a bit tatty in her winter weeds and headed off for the dark and jagged Belnahua, another of the Slate Isles. I spotted an increasingly rare great northern diver sailing offshore, body slung low in the water. These are winter visitors to the UK, favouring shallow coastal areas for the ready supply of fish, squid, crustaceans and molluscs. Occasionally nesting in Scotland, they breed in Iceland, Greenland and the other side of the Atlantic where they are known as loons, famously seen and heard in the film On Golden Pond. The bird ducked its head under the surface then propelled itself down with its powerful webbed feet. The wings are then used for further propulsion. Diving to depths of up to 60m, they can stay submerged for three minutes and usually swallow the fish before surfacing. It is fun, if futile, to predict when and where the diver will emerge. With its jewel-like red eyes, my diver, like the white-tail, was a little scruffy, as it was morphing into its remarkable black and white chequered summer plumage, like the kinetic paintings of Bridget Riley. • Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
The Guardian
27-01-2025
- The Guardian
Country diary: Divers, porpoises and otters – this is a kinetic wildlife spot
I'm two weeks into a trip to Luing – pronounced 'Ling' – in the Firth of Lorn in Argyll and Bute. From my 'office' on a slate beach of the best skimmers in the world, I've witnessed beautiful sunsets, wild storms, snow and horizontal rain. Beneath me are thousands of sea-worn slates of all sizes, spoil from the long-gone mines of this Slate Isles archipelago. The Vikings used these waters long before the merchantmen and navy vessels, and there are still a few lobster men plying their trade here. I first landed in 1971 and have regularly seen porpoises, bottlenose dolphins, minke whales and, on occasion, basking sharks, but no trip here is complete without otters. This time, the first ones surfaced during the two-minute ferry across Cuan Sound, soon followed by two more enjoying the flume ride along a spring water runnel, a 'sheugh', towards the open sea. Amid the splashing and spluttering as they blew across the surface of the water like kids in a bath, they drew me on through a lush flush of wild watercress which I collected to later make soup with. They led me to the remains of an earlier catch being cleaned up by gulls, with a white‑tailed sea eagle watching on. The big bird looked a bit tatty in her winter weeds and headed off for the dark and jagged Belnahua, another of the Slate Isles. I spotted an increasingly rare great northern diver sailing offshore, body slung low in the water. These are winter visitors to the UK, favouring shallow coastal areas for the ready supply of fish, squid, crustaceans and molluscs. Occasionally nesting in Scotland, they breed in Iceland, Greenland and the other side of the Atlantic where they are known as loons, famously seen and heard in the film On Golden Pond. The bird ducked its head under the surface then propelled itself down with its powerful webbed feet. The wings are then used for further propulsion. Diving to depths of up to 60m, they can stay submerged for three minutes and usually swallow the fish before surfacing. It is fun, if futile, to predict when and where the diver will emerge. With its jewel-like red eyes, my diver, like the white-tail, was a little scruffy, as it was morphing into its remarkable black and white chequered summer plumage, like the kinetic paintings of Bridget Riley. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
