minervasolo | rambly nature post (Reply)

Autumnwatch just reminds me of how much I love British wildlife. You can't say we lack colour: look at the jay and the kingfisher. You can't say we lack the spectacles: look at the starlings roosting (seriously, go check out the broadband website for the last episode of autumnwatch - I watched the starlings with Olly's mum, and though she barely speaks english, she loved it). We certainly don't lack for cute: foxes and red squirrels and pine martins. We don't lack for grandeur: the red deer rutting. We don't lack for violence: watch the seals fighting over mating rights. And we never, ever lack for beauty: autumn is a riot of colour, with the deciduous leaves and the berries and the sunsets and the birds and the animals and the earth.

In terms of nature documentaries now, the only ones I really watch are British and Ocean. I'm bored of lions and tigers and bear (and flamingoes, oh my!). I want more red squirrels and hedgehogs and badgers. And deer. And weasels and stoats and otters and pine martins and water rats (but not mink). I want kestrels and kites and eagles and ospreys. Hey, I even want more wild boar, now they've come back, and I wouldn't mind a few wolves.

And I love our landscape. You'll have a hard time convincing me there's any where I'd rather live. Rocks and rain and muddy grass and heath and moor and pine and oak and hedge and dale and hill and vale and mountain and marsh and fields and orchards and lakes and ponds and greens.

I miss woods, living in York. :(

Seriously, go check out autumnwatch. Nothing makes me feel patriotic like our wildlife.

And Bill Oddie is, to my mind, the perfect balance between Attenborough and Erwin - all of the enthusiasm of the latter but the respect of the former