There was movement in the water, on the opposite bank of the River Teme. A fish? No, we could now see it swimming on the surface. A snake—it was long and thin. And coming towards us. No: Jane pointed out the furry tail. A rat, then? A very small beaver? (I kept that thought to myself.) A squirrel? Do squirrels swim?...

Walking along the canal, two swans landed on the water. It felt that the canal was barely wide enough to contain them with wings open. Swans have massive wings. I didn’t see them coming in behind us, but turned when I heard them. By then they were almost level with us, at head height. As they glided in, the sound was...

On morning walks in January we are sometimes lucky enough to have Starlings fly over us. They appear out of nowhere, presumably from nesting on the piers, heading inland. The sound is acute and fleeting, wonderful, and I've never known how to describe it. Last night, reading The Birds (1952) in Daphne du Maurier's After...

I don't recall seeing so many white bluebells before, but it's probably normal.

Jane pointed this out to me the other day, and she's right. They have huge feet.  But do they really, and can we check? There's the AVONET data set from Imperial with body measurements for all 11,000 bird species. That has the weight of birds in it, and I suppose we'd expect foot length to increase with mass, so perhaps...

Reading: Climate change is speeding up — the pace nearly doubled in ten years, Nature, 6 March 2026. Why? This is mainly because of a reduction in air pollution following the introduction of fuel regulations for international shipping (which has resulted in fewer pollutant particles that reflect sunlight into space and...

It was some years ago, our veg box, unannounced, included a poster. We loved it—a beautiful thing, with science and nature—so put it in a frame and hung it: I've only just gone and looked up the artist, Adele Scantlebury. What we seem to have is an A3-version of "Soil Cycle". We're very lucky to have it. What has jolted...

There is also joy in its restraint. The snowdrop does not compete. It does not dominate a landscape. It invites you to look closely. You must stoop to see it properly, which feels appropriate. Hope, at this time of year, should make us bow our heads a little. Perfect from: The Snowdrop – flower of hope, Sussex Bylines,...

The view from the bench: I should probably get myself along to Soho to complete the set.

On the east side of Brighton Marina there's a jumble of sea defence blocks. It has been lovingly labelled: That was spotted on a walk back along the undercliff walk:

Thank you to the MRC, the University of Glasgow and the Centre for Virus Research for the paper art viruses. We've made a start on a couple of the easy ones. Why are they symmetric? From the PDF, viruses "have to be assembled from an extremely limited set of components, using the same building blocks repeatedly."  They...

The good thing about a storm is you get a very distinct tide line. As you walk along it, it's easy to become curious and fall into an impromptu mini beach clean. The dog can scamper away, as there's no one else around, and you can collect all sorts of odd bits of plastic and rope-like stuff. It makes it possible to...