Eight beautiful photographs from Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2019
The Natural History Museum's peerless nature photography competition always throws out some wonders.
Britain's giant tortoises
‘They’ve been around for 200 million years – we’re a blip to them’
The confusingly enormous hummingbird hawk-moth
Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s a hummingbird hawk-moth. Simon Lester took a closer look.
Breathtaking photographs from the Outdoor Photographer of the Year award
20,000 people entered the Outdoor Photographer of the Year award in 2018 — the winners were announced in March of 2019.
Curious Questions: Can a swan really break your arm?
Alexandra Fraser attempted to answer the question of the ages.
Can horses really heal humans?
The claims made for how horses help humans get over all manner of trauma stretch back to ancient times. Pippa Cuckson investigated.
Best pictures from the 2019 Audubon Photography Awards
An unusual piece for us in that it focused on North American birds, this piece on the Audobon Society's competition featured one of the great photographs of the year.
Why are we so superstitious about magpies?
One for sorrow, two for joy...
The world's loudest songbird is like standing next to a jet fighter taking off
Quite astonishing. You really have to read this one.
The parts of Britain invaded by Asiatic hornets
The worrying appearance of this 'devastating hornet that can kill up to 50 bees a day' made headlines at the end of the summer. Let's hope it's an isolated occurrence.
Credit: Alamy
11 things you never knew about the jackdaw, the bird that just loves people
Ian Morton takes a look at the jackdaw, a bird with a real affinity for man – despite a chequered reputation
Credit: Alamy
The delights of dung: 11 things you never knew about cowpats
It attracts no public regard apart from taking care not to step in it, but it plays a big role
The history of the elder tree: From deities and dryads to Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling
Does our love of a tall glass of elderflower cordial speak of an ancient connection with the tree itself, wonders
The wren: 8 things you ought to know about Britain's most common bird
It may be diminutive, but the perky-tailed wren has a powerful song and the ancient title of king among birds,
The incredible tale of the foxglove, from curing to disease to inspiring Van Gogh’s most striking paintings
A tale of skulduggery, poisoning, witches and even marketing men runs through the history of the foxglove, as Ian Morton
Credit: Alamy
Curious Questions: How did shrews get such a bad name?
The shrew is a tiny and seemingly-inoffensive creature of the meadow. So how did it end up becoming a byword
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A country house that's 'the finest-looking estate between the Humber and the Tweed' (at least according to Queen Victoria)Burn Hall is a treasure-trove of architectural features, from its sweeping staircase to its grand snooker room.
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William Kendall: 'We need to build a lot more solar farms and some wind turbines, too'The thought of losing of productive arable land to renewable-energy developments can be dispiriting and alarming, but informed local knowledge may be the key to their successful design.
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The 'greatest battle for 300 years': England's great estates face up to a green futureThe climate crisis will affect us all. All over Britain, major landowners are stepping up to tackle a warming world and biodiversity loss.
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'He unleashed a series of war cries, then intercepted the vole mid-air': There's nothing remotely common about the common kestrelKnown in Orkney as ‘moosie-haak’, kestrels are fierce hunters but have seriously declined and are now an amber-listed species.
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The truth about P.G. Wodehouse: Robert Daws on playing England's greatest comic writerThe actor Robert Daws starred alongside Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster back in the 1990s, and the work of P.G. Wodehouse has been part of his decades-long career ever since. He joined the Country Life Podcast.
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Don't judge a plant by its smell: Why 'the little stinkers of the natural world' are just doing their jobReminiscent of love and with an unmistakable odour of death, the little stinkers of the natural world might incite repulsion, but they are only doing their job, pleads Ian Morton
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Puffins and shearwaters, skuas and terns, gannets and gulls and guillemots and wings, these are a few of our favourite things (seabirds)From a heroic long-distance swimmer to a producer of spectacularly eerie sound effects, the seabirds seen swooping and diving over British waters have all manner of singular skills.
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The red kite is a soaraway success story, having escaped extinction to become a familiar sight in our skies againUnhurried in flight and with a sideline in stolen goods, the handsome red kite is the gentleman thief of the raptor world, writes Mark Cocker.
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‘This isn't just silver — it's a story of a man who fell in love with a woman who society deemed unworthy': The large silver sculpture of rutting stags that scandalised Victorian societyGeorge Harry Grey, the 7th Earl of Stamford, was shunned when he married a circus performer. This sculpture was his way of showing the world that he was a fighter — and it's now been acquired by the National Trust.
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The life that thrives among the dead: How wildlife finds a home in the graveyards and churchyards of BritainHome to a veritable ‘Noah’s Ark of species’, thanks to never being ploughed, sprayed or fertilised, our churchyards offer a sacred haven for flora and fauna, says Laura Parker.
