Nature
The scourge of urban gulls
These ‘endangered’ birds are taking over
The problem with rewilding
The government has gone wild. Under new plans, just announced by Environment Secretary George Eustice, farmers and landowners in England could…
Letters: In defence of organic food
A note about manure Sir: I am afraid Matt Ridley shows a lack of understanding about agriculture in general and…
The strange death of the English garden
Real gardens are dying out
Why it’s boom time for bitterns
Bitterns are booming, both literally and metaphorically. These handsome brown birds from the heron family make a noise quite unlike…
Virgil understood the great power of nature
‘Georgics’ are an ancient form of poetry about agriculture and the land. The term derives from Greek gê ‘land’ +…
Is the adder slithering towards extinction?
In early April, when the chiffchaff sings its drab little song in the leafless hawthorns, something is stirring in the…
Mother Nature is giving us her middle finger
Gstaad I have never experienced such a long, continuous blizzard, and I’ve been coming here for 63 years. The ski…
What Pliny the Elder and David Attenborough have in common
When it comes to natural history, Sir David Attenborough rules the airwaves. Pliny the Elder (d. ad 79) who, as…
The ethics of eating octopus
The questionable ethics of eating octopus
The ancients knew the value of the natural world
The ancients knew nothing about global warming, but they still reflected on the relationship between man and nature. In the…
The best wine since incarceration
The woodpecker jinked across the lawn like an especially cunning partridge. Its goal was a skilfully constructed bird table with…
Is it too late to save Britain’s ash trees?
Can Britain’s trees be saved?
There’s no point in bishops – Covid has shown us so
It is a relief to parents that young children are allowed out a bit now as the length of the…
How John Constable got masterpiece after masterpiece out of a tiny corner of rural Suffolk
John Constable’s paintings of a tiny corner of rural Suffolk teach us to see the beauty on our doorstep, says Martin Gayford
The intense pleasures of lockdown
I used to live in Mogadishu for months at a time, cooped up in compounds behind fortified walls. Venturing on…
Why whales sing: it’s a question of culture
Of course animals have culture
The importance of the Natural Health Service
Spending time outside is vital for mental health
Now is the time for comfort reads
It all started on the day after the Brexit referendum. People who do not get the result they voted for…
Covid-19 is giving me hyper-focus on the beauty of spring
We know, because of the lack of widespread testing, that incidences of Covid-19 are under-reported. What is less well known…
Mother nature is finally getting the art she deserves
Exhibitions about fungi, bugs and trees illustrate the depth, range and vitality of a growing field of art, says Mark Cocker
Dining, swimming, therapy: why is everyone obsessed with going ‘wild’?
Our worship of the ‘wild’ has gone too far
Starling murmurations are a display more dazzling than fireworks
It’s late afternoon in the car park of Workington Asda. A little crowd is gathering in one corner, most of…
The Grand Union Canal, a serene sanctuary amid the urban sprawl
It was a Saturday afternoon in September, the end of summer, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I’d gone…
Re-wilders forget that humans are nature too
‘Life pours back in.’ A score of us, listening to Charlie Burrell at the Knepp estate ten days ago, will…
