But the butterflies came first. They were the reason we were there.

A chance encounter with Matthew and the owls of Jambs Owls at Hall Place became an afternoon that changed everything we thought we knew about these extraordinary birds - and left us with questions we are still sitting with.

Bees pollinate a vast proportion of the food we eat and the wildflowers that hold ecosystems together.

I casually wondered what pine trees look like when there's no snow or decorations on them - just the tree itself, stripped of all those festive associations we pile onto them every December. So I grabbed my camera and got close. Really close.

Any day now, their chicks would appear. I was determined to be there when they did.

The overnight downpour had turned everything to mud. Their usual sanctuary was a sodden mess...

There's a quiet kind of magic that lives at the edge of the lake