Brittle bladder-fern Cystopteris fragilis in a shady, damp retaining wall in Teesdale, North Pennines. A beautiful, delicate fern with brittle frond stalks, typically found in crevices in limestone and mortared walls in the northern dales. Growing with hart’s-tongue fern in the third picture ..read more

 Ashes limestone quarry at Stanhope in Weardale ceased operations over 80 years ago and has since become a haven for wildlife. The bottom of the quarry is now a lake with a good range of wetland plant species, including mare's tail, reed mace and water mint, and is a breeding site for several dragonfly and damselfly species. The vertical cliff face hosts nesting jackdaws and sometimes its larger cavities ae occupied by less familiar bird species, like this tawny owl that I saw there a couple of weeks ago ..read more

I first found one of these cinnamon bugs Corizus hyoscyami in the garden a couple of years ago. Now they are well established here. They overwinter as adults and this is the first that I've seen this year, feeding on garden mint leaves. A strikingly beautiful insect. This is yet another species that's extending its range northwards, presumably in response to climate change, although I suppose that the wholesale and retail horticulture industry could be giving it a helping hand. Originally it was confined to coastal sand dune habitats in southern England, but now it se ..read more

 I found this bird's skull in Ashes quarry, Stanhope, Weardale a couple of days ago. I think it's a jackdaw's skull - it's about the right size (6.5 cm long), the beak is the right shape and it was under a site where jackdaws often nest. A beautiful object, light but strong, with a large brain case as befits such an intelligent bird species ..read more

 Three pictures of two ladybirds often associated with conifers, found on a fence post on the edge of a Sitka spruce plantation in the Deerness valley, County Durham. The eyed ladybird is our largest native species, while the larch ladybird, with yellow wing cases, is one of our smallest.  Ladybirds seem to like climbing to the top of fence posts on sunny days - the lower pictures here, of another eyed ladybird, a 16-spot ladybird Halyzia 16-guttata and a harlequin ladybird, were all taken on fence posts in Teesdale earlier this week ..read more

  At the end of March it looked as though we would have an exceptional display of Amelanchier flowers this spring - but then the bullfinches found them and thinned out the flower buds. A small price to pay for having these lovely birds in the garden, and it may have deflected their attention away from the damson and pear blossom buds ..read more

 Watched this little long-tailed tit collecting nest material - lichen and spiders' webs - in a patch of brambles beside the disused railway line at Brancepeth, County Durham ..read more

Almost a work of abstract art - last year's leaf mines of the bramble leaf miner moth Stigmella aurella in an old bramble leaf. It looks like there were two miners in this one,  with their feeding tunnels becoming increasingly broad as the larvae grew.   ..read more

Grey wagtails are balletic birds, never still for an instant, always twirling and darting here and there in search of insects. I photographed this beauty in the river Tees, downstream from Abbey bridge at Egglestone. The river is fast and turbulent there, rushing through a narrow rocky gorge, and its spray encourages luxurient growth of mosses and liverworts at the water's edge - a favourite feeding ground for wagtails in search of small insects that live in this riverbank vegetation.   ..read more

  The river Wear begins its great loop around Durham cathedral peninsula here, at Elvet bridge. It’s always a busy spot. Aside from the rowing crews and scullers training for regattas, there are tourists in hired rowing boats and a constant passage of joggers, cyclists and walkers along the riverbank footpath. Mostly busy people on their way to somewhere, but it’s often a good place to just stand and stare: there can be interesting birds here. In winter there were goosanders fishing. In early spring little grebes took up residence for a while: energetic divers that we timed submerged for ..read more