In the spotlight

Giles Catchpole considers the art of riverside conversation

I HAVE written numerous pieces about mallard – this our most ubiquitous duck is a survivor. Mallard can be found almost everywhere, and I love them and never tire of watching them. They are underrated

Stoatally elusive

Peek over the parapet of a bridge just as daylight bleeds into dusk, gazing down through the clear layers of a shallow river or chalk stream, and you may glimpse the shadowy, serpentine form of an eel

When we think of the U-boat campaign during the Second World War, images often arise of silent predators gliding beneath the waves, steely and lethal, striking fear into Allied convoys. The myth of th

Moles are strange. they have evolved to become so highly specialised and attuned to a particular way of life that they are, for the most part, out of sight. Underground, they live in a fossorial world