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

 Some pictures from a walk last week in the Derwent Walk Country Park, Winlaton Mill, Gateshead. Silver birches and willows, seen from the top of the Nine Arches railway viaduct over the river Derwent. The buds of the birches take on a purplish hue at this time of year, as they begin to swell, while the willows have an orange tint. Carrion crow. Handsome birds, with a hint of blue iridescence in their plumage. A fine display of colt'sfoot Dutch rush Equisetum hyemale spore cones beginning to disperse spores. An uncommon plant, but there are some fine patches of it beside the footpat ..read more

Maybe it's time someone produce a survey of the flora of rotting fence posts. There are so many fascinating and often beautiful examples of these miniature gardens, colonised by mosses, lichens, fungi and flowering plants, where the water retentive end-grain of the wood provides just enough moisture for the organisms to survive throughout the year.  Pixie-cup lichens Cladonia spp. are some of the commonest colonisers. I noticed this exquisite example on the site of the former Brancepeth colliery at Willington in County Durham.   ..read more

When I'm looking out of the kitchen window early in the morning I often see this little wren rootling around in the front garden. Here it's pecking tiny animals from the moss that grows between the paving bricks in the garden path. I often see people pressure-washing away the moss that grows in the crevices in block paving, which seems a pity, since mosses are home to an enormous range of tiny organisms that sit at the bottom of food chains. One way to make a garden more wildlife friendly is to encourage the moss growth ..read more