Alloa 16°c
DAWN is breaking and the soft glow of morning gains in intensity as…
DAWN is breaking and following the previous day's torrential rain,…
THE flickering wings of a green-veined white butterfly catches the…
IT IS DUSK and I’m sitting in my Clackmannanshire garden, soaking…
IT WAS the white that caught my eye; a flash of undulating paleness…
WILDFLOWERS are blooming in abundance throughout the Wee County at…
WHERE have all the house martins gone? I've seen a few hawking over…
THE ringing yodel of a green woodpecker carries across the trees…
THERE are young birds around wherever you look in Clackmannanshire…
YELLOWHAMMERS are wonderful little birds, typically found along farm…
IT IS INCREDIBLE the difference a few weeks make.
I HAVE never heard a skylark singing in a blizzard before, but…
IT'S said that the pioneering 18th century Swedish naturalist Carl…
I WAS delighted to present an illustrated talk recently to the…
THE vibrant colours of newly emerging leaves on our trees and bushes…
I DESCRIBED the Black Devon in this column a few years back as…
TAKE a woodland walk anywhere in Clackmannanshire over the next few…
A SMALL dark object swirls on the surface of the pool by the edge of…
THE stretch of the River Devon to the south of Alva is remote and…
WILD spaces are such an important element of our towns, and no more…
A BROWN object in a grassy field; a rock perhaps?
A BITTER wind swept over the ruffled waters of Gartmorn Dam, but at…
FUNGI often get overlooked, which is a shame because they are…
IT WAS just before dawn and as I quietly made my way along the track…
THE mild weather of late has led to some excellent walking…
DUSK is falling upon Strathdevon; the ground is hard from the cold…
EVEN in the fading late afternoon light, the colour was quite…
A READER wrote to me with an enquiry about nuthatches. Having…
FROM atop the narrow ridge I watch the sparrowhawk skim over the…
IT WAS a soft piping from the gorse, a gentle call almost consumed…
UP AND down go the crazy ravens in looping undulations, some of the…
WE MIGHT be on the verge of winter but I heard a twinkling of bird…
ALL of a sudden, the hawthorns lining the lanes and tracks of…
I SAW my first incoming migratory geese last week winging their way…
A ROLLING wake breaks the water surface here on the Devon estuary by…
SOMETIMES when wildlife spotting you strike lucky – and the fates…
AS I MAKE my way along the banks of the River Devon, a strong waft…
HAREBELLS, or Scottish bluebells are they are sometimes known, are…
THE warm summer in the Wee County has really benefited our…
DOWN in Strathdevon, many of the wildflowers have finished blooming…
ONE of the joys of fly-fishing on the River Devon is the abundance…
I'VE always admired herons for their guile ever since I saw one…
A FLASH of sparkling blue by this path edge in the Ochils that…
JO GIRVAN of the Forth Rivers Trust carefully wades up the Dollar…
THE scattering of purple-flowered mountain pansies along the edge of…
AS HILL climbs go, it really doesn’t get much steeper than when…
THE transformation down by the River Devon has been stunning in…
IT WAS a puddle, no more than that; a water-filled wheel rut on an…
ONE of the fascinating aspects of the natural world is that it is…
IT TAKES guts, considerable skill and sheer determination to scale a…
