Author Archives: Amanda Tuke
Urban botany in the snow – Deptford, SE London
For nearly a decade, Nick Bertrand, has been leading a walk on the first day of winter – 1st December – in search of wild plants in flower in Deptford. I first joined one of these urban botany walks two years ago and really enjoyed the plant hunting and sociability. Last Friday we met as […]
Thirty-minute birder column: Seawatching for starters
What an extraordinary place Dungeness is… and a great place to have a first proper go at seawatching in the expert company of David Walker, warden at Dungeness Bird Observatory. Oh, and have a mentioned I saw a pallid harrier that day too??
Thirty-minute birder column: from rushing water to rumbling traffic
I’m fascinated by the ways urban birds adapt to their surroundings, and in particular the noise pollution… but it was a visit to a river valley in north Wales which inspired this feature…
Thirty-minute birder column: Saying Farewell in Belfast
What an eye-opener my visit to Belfast was back in August. This is a city which really “gets” its birds… and has some of nicest most generous birders I’ve met on any of my city birding trips. But did I get to see a Black Guillemot? You’ll really need to read it to find out…
Thirty Minute Birder column: Make your birdwatching count
…in which I visit Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for a tour with Tom Bellamy, park ecologist, and investigate options for uploading bird records.
Thirty-minute birder column – Right place, wrong time?
Spoiler alert, there isn’t really a wrong time to visit Britain’s and Ireland’s wonderful bird observatories as I discovered when I went to Portland Bird Observatory in June.
Thirty-minute birder column: walk on the wild side
What a lovely bunch of folks Edinburgh birders are! Thanks to all their helpful suggestions I had a fabulous two days of squeezing in birding around family visits as you can see in the August issue of Bird Watching Magazine.
Thirty-minute birder column: meet the nest cam gang
Since talking to folk who install and/or monitor nest cam footage, I’ve gained another way of getting distracted from working – having a nest cam livestream in the corner of my computer screen. (Most of the fab photos in this feature were taken by WildlifeKate – a veritable force of nature!)
Thirty-minute birder column: Could do better?
I’m always on the look out for nifty free or good value resources for intermediate birders to use to improve their bird identification skills, so in my column for the June issue of Bird Watching Magazine I’ve recruited a team of generous volunteers to test some resources for me. The sound identification function on Cornell […]
London Pavement Plants – in flower this week
You don’t have to go far to find colour and interest in our city with new pavement plants coming into flower almost every day. From top left & clockwise, these are Black Medick, Shining Crane’s-bill, Common Field Speedwell and Rue-leaved Saxifrage. Urban botany is just fab and the smaller London plants rival our spectacular street […]
The Urban Naturalist 