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Photos of snow? Yes, I appreciate that many visitors to 10,000 Birds will also be shivering under a blanket of snow and freezing air, but I would guess that not so many are seeing the winter as it grips a beautiful English manor house and gardens. So especially for my American friends who would like [...]

The recent weather here in the UK has reminded us Brits that we in fact live on a fairly small rock on one edge of the Atlantic Ocean. When the wind blows somewhere over that great body of volatile water it invariably ends up crashing into the British Isles, spraying the entire country with cold [...]

I’ve been a little quiet of late (not that anyone will have noticed I don’t suppose), but I’ve been off work for a few weeks (for reasons I may well bore you with another day) and haven’t been returning home with flash cards full of exotic birds and stories of stumbling around jet-lagged in swamps [...]

Sitting down to write this I’m keenly aware of Galicissa’s superb and very funny blog post on APOBPS (which is also possibly the first time in recorded history that Jochen has been beaten to the punch in the ’surreal treatment of a birding subject in a blog’ stakes!) but nevertheless, I intend to press on [...]

Much of June and early July was an incredibly busy time (I - we - will NEVER again move house whilst playing host to Evie’s twin sister and her mum, as hugely enjoyable as the visit was…) but things are starting to settle down again. Most of the boxes are unpacked, Jo has turned ‘a [...]

Okay, we’ve had unborn babies and re-united twins on 10,000 Birds in the last few weeks - and now we’re doing houses…yes, it’s another non-birdy post, but I hope readers will forgive me because I woke up in a Wiltshire paradise today, and after the stresses of moving (box after box after box after box [...]

Yatton Down SSSI, Wiltshire
Various Dates
 

Yatton Down, looking south towards Long Dean

Yatton Down, looking north towards the Castle Combe racing circuit
 

One of my favourite local patches is the small (14.4 (ha.) 36 (ac.)) and easily acessible Yatton Down Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which is just a few miles from Chippenham and close to the [...]