Naturalist. bTB Badger Vaccinator. Nature & travel writer. Photographer. Bee Watcher.
About me
Above is my old @WildlifeStuff twitter profile. It pretty much sums me up.
Even though I was born in Hackney, London in the 1960s, and lived in London for 12 years, my heart has always been in the countryside. I’m the tomboy tearing around on my bike feeding squirrels in Friends, and my cabinet of curiosities is full to overflowing.
For the last 20 years, I’ve lived in Dorset; a wildlife and habitat diverse county in England, with my husband and Tilly, the fat tortoiseshell cat.
Nature
I’m fascinated by all wildlife and wild places.
My first book, written for HarperCollins/National Trust, is called Nature’s Wonders: The Moments that Mark the Seasons, and explores 50 magical moments that define our seasons. I hope it inspires people to connect more with nature as well as discover some quirky facts along the way. From foxgloves to flying ants, there’s something for everyone.
I’m also an amateur naturalist. I have a passion for bumblebees and solitary bees (the ones that make nests in your lawn and use holes in your walls and get mistaken for honeybees), badgers (I’m a bovine TB badger vaccinator), and old gnarly trees.
I wrote an award-winning online wildlife diary from 2007 to 2015. Since then, my work has featured in BBC Countryfile Magazine and BBC Wildlife Magazine, and in Mark Avery’s Stand Up For Nature blog and in The Blackmore Vale Magazine.
In 2016, my work was included in An anthology for the changing seasons; Autumn and Winter, edited by Melissa Harrison and published by Elliott & Thompson Limited and I have written about pollinators for Dorset Wildlife Trust, poisonous plants for The Wildlife Trusts’ Wildlife Watch magazine, and about nightjars for the prestigious Land Lines’ Nightjar Nights project.
My piece Autumn Dawn was published in Autumn Colours, an illustrated limited edition chapbook published by Sampson Low Ltd, and I was a runner-up in the Autumn Writing Competition (out of 500 entrants) run by BeAnimal.
Travel and Wellbeing
In 2022 I was a finalist in the Bradt New Travel Writer of the Year Competition for my story Waiting for Wilma and I’ve had a piece in The Telegraph’s Just back travel section about a disastrous campervan journey.
I love the feel of squelchy mud or sand between my toes and if I can incorporate a jog or walk while encountering wildlife or discovering new wild places, I’m happy.
Although I’m a big advocate for jogging, shuffling and walking for the over 50s, especially women, I’m also a dreadful lounge-lizard, and can easily dunk half a packet of rich tea biscuits in a single mug of tea. No one’s perfect, right?
Photography
A passion for photography in my teens and twenties culminated in a BA (Hons) in Photography at Salisbury College of Art in 1995. I took most of the photos on this site, any I didn’t take are credited to the photographer.
My photographs of wildlife have been used in local and national magazines, blogs and websites. My photographs of bees were included in the book Plants for Bees written by William D J Kirk, and published by the International Bee Research Association (a selection of the photographs can be seen here).
To see what I get up to with my camera, check out my Instagram account.
Contact me
If you would like to commission an article, use any of my nature photographs (from a library of over 20,000) or would just like to discuss a writing idea, it would be great to hear from you.
Running on Studland Beach