journalism

photo: Mary Muir

I write regularly for The Guardian and review for Resurgence and The Spectator, among other publications. Since 1987 I have contributed to the Guardian Country Diary, an article every other Tuesday (and for 20 years every other Monday). Click the title for my latest. For Country Life I recently wrote about the extraordinary cultural place of the Turtle Dove which is Britain’s most rapidly declining bird. How can this fabulous creature be both the quintessence of summer and an icon of Christmas? Click its name to find out.

Another great commission involved me writing about Britain’s birds of prey for Country Life: 14 pieces, each week from May-Aug 2025. I tried to draw out the extraordinariness of raptors’ lives, but also to highlight how the full picture is essentially a good-news story. Kestrel has declined, while Merlin and Hen Harriers are still persecuted by the so-called game community. There is clearly scope for further improvement, but it was a powerful revelation to me, as I hope it is to readers, that things can really get better. Here are some examples.

Here are five of them courtesy of Country Life. Click the species to read them: