Section
Science, nature and the outdoors — birds, stars, rocks, rivers, and the projects you can join.
A beginner's guide to stargazing: letting your eyes adapt, the planets you can find without a telescope, why a red torch matters, the honest challenges of cloud and cold, and observatories and astronomy societies near you that will lend you a look through their telescopes.
A beginner's guide to birdwatching: the free apps that identify birds for you, when binoculars are worth having, the honest challenges, the big public counts you can join, and guided walks and reserves near you.
A beginner's guide to fossil hunting: why it is easier than it looks, the honest challenges, the rules on what you can keep, what to bring, and guided walks and free fossil parks in the UK and US.
How a retired Intel researcher from Baker City, Oregon, walked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in about seven months: the snow, the gear, the food and why she thinks pace mattered more than youth. How to start multi-day hiking, or build towards a long trail if you already walk.
In September 2026 the journal Science Advances described a decagon, a ten-sided atmospheric wave, around Saturn's south pole. One of its authors is Trevor Barry, an amateur astronomer who left school after Year 10 and spent 30 years in the mines of Broken Hill. How a homemade observatory ended up in a scientific paper, what the evidence says about looking up, and how to find Saturn this month.
In February 2024 Peter Kaestner saw an orange-tufted spiderhunter in the Philippines and became the first birder to record 10,000 species. Guinness World Records profiled him in June 2026. How a boyhood hobby in Baltimore shaped a 36-year diplomatic career, what the evidence says about time spent around birds, and how to start or stretch a list of your own.
Dr Jeremy Lockwood, 68, a retired GP from the Isle of Wight, took up a PhD in palaeontology at the University of Portsmouth after retiring. Studying thousands of bones held at Dinosaur Isle and the Natural History Museum, he has identified three new dinosaur species, most recently the sail-backed Istiorachis macarthurae, described in August 2025.
