The great crested grebe is a member of the grebe family of water birds. The bird is characterised by its distinctive appearance, featuring striking black and white plumage, and elaborate courtship display that involves synchronised dances and displays.
Gilbert White was a "parson-naturalist", a pioneering English naturalist, ecologist, and ornithologist. He is best known for his Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.
The Iberian chiffchaff is a species of leaf warbler endemic to Portugal, Spain and North Africa, west of a line stretching roughly from the western Pyrenees via the mountains of central Spain to the Atlantic.
The black tern is a small tern generally found in or near inland water that breeds in Europe, Western Asia and North America. In winter the birds migrate to coastal areas of Africa and South America.
The cirl bunting, , is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae.
Watercress or yellowcress is a species of aquatic flowering plant in the cabbage family, Brassicaceae.
Richard Thomas Mabey is a writer and broadcaster, chiefly on the relations between nature and culture.
Mark Cocker is a British author and naturalist. He lives with his wife, Mary Muir, and two daughters in Claxton, Norfolk. The countryside around Claxton is a theme for two of his twelve books.
"Goosey Goosey Gander" is an English-language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6488.
Nature writing is nonfiction or fiction prose about the natural environment. It often draws heavily from scientific information and facts while also incorporating philosophical reflection upon various aspects of nature. Works are frequently written in the first person and include personal observations.
Pfeilstorch is a stork that is injured by an arrow or spear while wintering in Africa and returns to Europe with the projectile stuck in its body. As of 2003, about 25 Pfeilstörche have been documented in Germany.
Lark Rise to Candleford is a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Flora Thompson about the countryside of north-east Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England, at the end of the 19th century. The stories were previously published separately as Lark Rise in 1939, Over to Candleford in 1941 and Candleford Green in 1943. They were first published together in 1945.
The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, or just The Natural History of Selborne is a book by English parson-naturalist Gilbert White (1720–1793). It was first published in 1789 by his brother Benjamin. It has been continuously in print since then, with nearly 300 editions up to 2007.
The Mabey Group is a British-based group of engineering companies, which specialises in steel fabrication, plant hire and construction products. It was initially established by Guy Mabey as a building supplies business in 1923, and expanded into engineering work, particularly bridging, under the leadership of his son, Bevil Mabey, after World War II. In the early 21st century, it was implicated in bribery scandals over corrupt payments to win contracts in countries including Iraq, Jamaica and Ghana. It sold its bridge business in May 2019 to US-based Acrow Bridge.
Birds Britannia is a BBC four-part television series about the birds of the United Kingdom, first shown from 7 to 28 November 2010 on BBC Four. It was produced by Stephen Moss.
Shite-hawk or shit-hawk or shitty hawk is a slang name applied to various birds of prey that exhibit scavenging behaviour, originally and primarily the black kite, although the term has also been applied to other birds such as the herring gull. It is also a slang derogatory term for an unpleasant person.
Taron Egerton is a Welsh actor. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he performed in stage plays. Egerton gained recognition for his starring role as Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, a spy, in the action comedy films Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017).
The Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds was written by the English naturalist and army officer George Montagu, and first published by J. White of Fleet Street, London in 1802.
Wild: An Elemental Journey is a 2006 book about travel in Earth's wildernesses by the British writer Jay Griffiths.
Peter Marren is a British writer, journalist, and naturalist. He has written over 20 books about British nature, including Chasing the Ghost: My Search for all the Wild Flowers of Britain (2018), an account of a year-long quest to see every wild flower in the UK; Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Butterfly Delight (2016); Bugs Britannica (2010); and After They're Gone: Extinctions Past, Present and Future (2022). Marren has also written a number of books about military history and battlefields and, as a journalist, many national newspaper articles.
