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A picture of royal talent: Prince George's never-before-seen drawing of a kingfisherPrince George is following in his mother's footsteps and learning to embrace the natural world — one drawing at a time.
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The Princess of Wales: 'I was told that my recovery would not be linear. There will be good days and bad days, that it will take time. This is the same in nature'The Princess of Wales talks to Robert Macfarlane about nature, hope and our sense of belonging.
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‘My wife says it’s like watching paint dry’: The National Ploughing Championships is outstanding in its fieldPractice, plot preparation and a keen eye for a straight line are key at the British National Ploughing Championships, but winning is only half the story, discovers Mary Skipwith. Photographs by Mark Williamson.
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Why did the tradition of home seed saving go out of fashion?Until the early 19th century, we collected the seeds from our gardens to plant the following year. Adam Alexander, also known as the Seed Detective, looks at why we stopped doing so and why this matters.
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Alpacalypse now: The Peruvian camelids conquering the countrysideCombining luxurious fleeces with big buck teeth and comedic personalities, alpacas may sound like the perfect field ornament, but keeping a herd is not for the faint-hearted.
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A four-storey wall of water off Cornwall? Meet the CribbarCribbar attracts some of the best surfers in the UK. Ahead of the big wave season, Andy Martin went to meet them. Photographs by Adrian Bagley.
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Find out which Country Life cover star has triumphed in the battle of the banknotes — and who we actually wanted to winThe nation has voted for the British wildlife that they want to replace Churchill with on our banknotes.
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Going against the grain: Meet the British bakeries championing ancient and heritage cropsLargely beholden since the 1960s to industrially produced wheat, many British bakeries are now seeing a chance. Tom Howells meets a series of pioneering growers and makers.
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If any animal could be considered an artist, it is surely the redstartThe redstart or ‘fireflirt’s’ painterly good looks aren’t the only attribute that bewitches Mark Cocker–its extraordinary talent for mimicry brings the whole world within reach
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Bog standard? We beg to differ. These fascinating wetlands have a fearsome historyJohn Lewis-Stempel digs in to the history of the bog.
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The Princess Royal's horses at Gatcombe: 'They have to do something useful'HRH The Princess Royal has been involved with horses throughout her life. Kate Green went to Gatcombe Park to speak to her about the steeds which she keeps at her home estate today.
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Don't bat away the fruit fly! This humble pest has six Nobel Prizes to its nameThey may be small insects with a taste for fermenting produce, but fruit flies are both a gift to scientific research and the first living creature in space, discovers Ian Morton.
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Why the treacherous lure of quivering quicksand haunts our nightmaresThe seaside sludge has captivated the minds of writers and film-makers for centuries. Harry Pearson gets to the bottom of why.
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We're heading for an autumn of unparalleled colour — but why?If the days stay warm and the nights are cold, Charles Quest-Ritson is optimistic.
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The ocean is dying. Titouan Bernicot is regrowing it, one coral at a timeThe world (and Rolex and Prada) are betting on a 20-something-year-old's coral gardens.
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What is everyone talking about this week: Is this to be the worst apple harvest in history?Record heat and next to no rainfall all summer means Britain's orchards are set to suffer devastating losses.
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In classical times this bird was sacred to Aphrodite and for millennia served as an erotic symbolThe braying cacophony of a greylag goose flock in full chorus has made the breed unlikeable, despite their amorous connections, writes Mark Cocker.
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Would you still charm me if I was a worm?Every summer, a quiet Cheshire village becomes the scene of one of the world’s most unusual sporting contests: the World Worm Charming Championships. Tom Howells reports.
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Silent assassin or scapegoat: Is the sparrowhawk really to blame for Britain’s vanishing songbirds?Mark Cocker turns his attention to the surprisingly fast sparrowhawk in this instalment of his column, The Unloved Bird's Club.
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If this drought has one upside, it's that it's revealed many of our landscape's long lost treasuresThis week's Athena notes that at Portchester Castle, and other sites, more history is on show than usual due to the heat and drought.
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The ultimate shapeshifters: There's more to clouds than meets the eyeConstable spent hours re-creating them on canvas and Shelley was so obsessed that he wrote a poem pretending to be one.
