After what seems like weeks of unsettled weather conditions, we've at last been able to enjoy a few days of calmer winds and the odd warm ray of sunshine. The mixture of southerly and easterly airflows has also enabled a slow but assured movement of spring migrants to pass through the island, although numbers are [...]
The Scottish have a word for it: dreich. This word has several meanings when applied to weather, including wet, dull, gloomy, dismal, dreary, miserable or any combination of the above. Whilst traditionally used to sum up the month of November in the north, it was equally fitting for the conditions we experience on easter bank holiday [...]
As our spring term came to an end at the Penryn Campus, it was time to make my regular pilgrimage northward back home to the isle in the tides: Ynys Enlli. Whilst I usually have to endure a pretty gruelling (though very scenic!) 12-hour train journey to return to North Wales from Cornwall, I was [...]
It's been an odd start to 'spring' 2018. At the beginning of March, much of the UK lay under a blanket of snow, and even here in balmy Cornwall we weren't safe from the disruption reeked by Storm Emma - the so-called 'Beast from the East'. The Met Office issued severe weather alerts - the [...]
Last Saturday I joined a group of students from uni aboard the Free Spirit to carry out a series of surveys in the Fal Estuary, sifting through the water column to assess the level of microplastics polluting this rich ecosystem. Rugged up in innumerable thermal layers and equipped with sampling pots, two cone-shaped plankton nets and ample [...]
I can't quite believe how much time has elapsed since I last posted an update here on my blog! Time is certainly a little thin on the ground at the moment, what with dissertation hand-ins looming and the usual line-up of other deadlines to contend with. That's still no excuse for the desperate lack of [...]
~ A week on the shores of a far-flung Scottish loch ~ Making the most of a week bereft (at least mostly) of lectures, myself and housemate (or in my case, caravan buddy) took a spontaneous trip to western Scotland; the aim was to allow some head space to crack on with university assignments and [...]
