Nic has been a Country Diarist for The Guardian for the past three years. She feels privileged to be able to write about the local landscape and wildlife that she loves.
Recent Country Diaries:
- Hitchin, Hertfordshire: Otters are currently active and are leaving their spraint by the River Purwell. But why does this one seem to be looking at me?We all have the odd unsavoury habit. At least, that’s what I told myself yesterday as […]
- Exbury Gardens, New Forest, Hampshire: The male barely looks real, glittering in the canopy as if dusted with sapphiresOn the banks of Dragonfly Pond, family mutiny is brewing. My kids have just missed an azure flash across the water that vanished […]
- Hexton Chalk Pit, Hertfordshire: A male small blue, the UK’s tiniest resident butterfly, pays us a visitI’m crouched in a grassy hollow, chatting to my friend Steve about the ethics of watching a pair of dingy skippers in flagrante, when a […]
- Hitchin, Hertfordshire: This magnificent black poplar survived lightning and bracket fungus. Now it’s gone – but the story isn’t over yetThe jackdaw colony by the Ash Brook is in disarray. Agitated birds circle the field making a chacking ruckus. Something is […]
