I had to admit that I lacked the necessary humility to second-guess myself regarding the mites. However, the incident ultimately produced an even stronger attitude of care towards nonhumans. Natural history, as Thomas Fleischner has argued, can do this. Continue reading Caring for carrion beetles
Here, I make a case for something that I call compassionate entomology, which is a way of studying insects and other arthropods that upholds the intrinsic value and welfare interests of the individual focal organisms. Continue reading Making a case for compassionate entomology
I live my life caught between conflicting impulses: on one hand, a wish to escape the shackles of human management; and, on the other, a reticence—out of ecological respect—to roam beyond its already-excessive bounds. Continue reading The lie of the beholder
Three summers ago, I typed the words “most probably correct” in closing an Earth Tongues piece titled ‘Smiles and scowles: Puzzles in the Forest’. At that point, I felt that I had written all that I was ever going to on the subject of tourists experiencing curious English woodlands. But a recent encounter with an Italian couple, on a misty July morning, has set me penning this unexpected sequel. Continue reading Size of disappointment: Puzzles on the Moor
When you have the privilege of quietly observing these cold-blooded miracles going about their lives—when you watch them exist—the need to find any other justification for their being starts to ebb away. Continue reading Love, existence, and the nature of picture postcards
It was in the late 2000s that my son bought an old abandoned house in rural Ukraine, some 150 km from Kyiv. Unfortunately, we could not afford to buy something closer to the city; and we were seeking something “wild”. Continue reading Abandoned and beautiful: A sketch of pre-war visits to an old rural house in Ukraine
Once you cut yourself off from media and start living as a recluse interesting things happen. Continue reading Four weeks of solitude
Near the southern end of the modern border between Wales and England – on the side of the latter – the sea-seeking River Wye and the Severn Estuary provide the aquatic outline for a curious wedge of land. Continue reading Smiles and scowles: Puzzles in the Forest
One night years ago, in a park in Florida, I met a wonderful couple, Carol Wolf and her husband, Herb. They introduced me to the joys of mothing, the practice of attracting moths to suspended sheets with ultraviolet lights at night, and photographing them. This can get quite exciting, especially when a new, or unusually beautiful, species turns up. Continue reading The ethics of mothing
In a grand revival of natural history lies a significant proportion of the work that needs to be done if humanity is to awaken to the appalling crisis of life’s erasure. Continue reading The zebras of Kidderminster
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