1+ hour, 32+ min ago  (173+ words) In the latest success story for reintroducing species to the British countryside, turtle doves, reared in captivity and released at three locations in Somerset and Devon last year, have returned to breed. Turtle doves have steeply declined in numbers, hanging…...

3+ week, 2+ hour ago  (483+ words) These ponies, the official emblem of Dartmoor, have been categorised as livestock no different to a cow To read the gushing outrage, what animal lovers are asking is for farmers to keep herds of ponies on Dartmoor for no financial…...

3+ week, 2+ hour ago  (149+ words) Particular Books, pp.320, 25 Korsgaard must stitch her time-consuming special interest into the ‘crazy patchwork quilt’ of a multitasking mother’s life. Her husband and three boys look on, wry, baffled and sweetly accepting of her apparent midlife crisis. The transformation of…...

1+ mon, 5+ day ago  (627+ words) The Spectator Australia Symbol of wisdom or harbinger of death – the owl preserves its mystery The many legends of humans and gods taking owl form continue to give the ghostly nocturnal predator an indefinable allure William Collins, pp.256, 20 As the…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago  (266+ words) Unlike last year, when drought caused many curlews in the Durham dales to delay breeding, this has been a great spring for them. Last week, wherever I walked, anxious curlew parents were whinnying above me like aerial ponies. At one…...

2+ mon, 2+ day ago  (685+ words) Simon Benson wrote in the Australian this week that the Liberal party’s collapse in Farrer had been ‘rapid and spectacular’. Electoral collapse, yes. Political collapse, no. Way wrong. What happened in Farrer last weekend has been building for the better…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago  (191+ words) Profile Books, pp.340, 20 William Collins, pp.423, 22 O let them be left, wildness and wet Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. He doesn’t want, obviously, to bore his readers. If you struggle with the ‘long taxonomic names of fungi…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago  (702+ words) At St. Peter’s Church in St. George’s, Bermuda, the oldest Anglican church in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere,... Why Bermuda is loyal to the King The 2022 royal tour of the Caribbean by the Prince and Princess of Wales was…...

4+ mon, 5+ day ago  (511+ words) Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from London and beyond. Email tips to [email protected]. Trail hunting battle looms for rural lobby Tally ho! That sound you can hear is Keir Starmer’s barmy army charging…...

4+ mon, 1+ week ago  (763+ words) The Spectator Australia Seeing the trees for the wood Coppicing and pollarding are essential if trees are to produce wood in perpetuity for any useful purpose, making woodland heavily dependent on human management You’re up an oak tree somewhere between…...