It was Christmas once again, and Matilda would need her magical woodland spirit more than ever

● A couple of miles inland from the ...

Establishing crops and hedgerow management are key jobs this month for Joe Stanley

THIS MONTH Barn owls

Plundering a local byway for a spot of festive foraging, John Lewis-Stempel finds all life proliferating in the multitudinous micro-habitat of the winter hedgerow

Whether winter-faded ferns, the spindly harvestman or the tyrannical stare of an irate chicken, through-lines from the prehistoric to our modern age are all around us in November, says John Lewis-Stempel