Father and son develop film careers

A fledgling creative media company in Northumberland is tasting commercial success with the production of a series of promotional films for businesses and music videos for local bands.
With support from Northumberland Business Service Ltd (NBSL), father and son partnership Ian and Matthew Brown have joined forces to create Flashlight Films, combining experience to develop their [...]

First close-up of Kielder’s osprey chicks

The first osprey chicks to be born in Northumberland for at least two hundred years are fighting fit and getting ready for take-off!
A team of experts from the Forestry Commission paid an early morning visit to the remote nest in 62,000-hectare (155,000-acre) Kielder Water & Forest Park to ring the youngsters and take down their [...]

Growing appeal in the garden

Gardening has never been so popular.
The number of people growing their own has gone through the roof this year and that’s meant even longer lists for those waiting to take on an allotment.
If you are lucky enough to have your own already, or are about to get one, a new offering from the National Trust, [...]

Be friendly to bees

Bumblebees and honeybees keep our countryside alive and beautiful, and ensure we can harvest our grain, seeds, fruit and nuts.

Without them it would be a very bleak world indeed.  Climate change, intensive farming practices and disease epidemics have made times tough for our native bee populations and they need all the help they can get [...]

Osprey chicks take a bow at Kielder

The Kielder Partnership has announced that the first ospreys to nest successfully in Northumberland for over two centuries have had three chicks.
The first image of the historic nest has been released, showing the female sitting proudly on the artificial nesting platform, erected on the estate by the Forestry Commission last year.
Also visible are the heads [...]

Floralies Flower Show celebrates 10th anniversary

THE FLORALIES FLOWER show is a horticulturalist’s paradise.
It is celebrating its 10th anniversary year by bringing together 200 of the world’s top floral artists, landscape gardeners and environmental architects to create an explosion of colours and scents for one of the world’s greatest gardening events.
The 35-hectare Beaujoire exhibition centre will be transformed into a huge [...]

Overseas home buying loses appeal

The steady exit of Brits from the overseas property market has now become a mass exodus.
That’s according to www.look4aproperty.com one of the UK’s leading websites for UK and overseas property, which reports an 80 per cent drop in enquiries about overseas properties over the last six months.
“There have been reports that the overseas market is [...]

Drop in daddy long legs is devastating bird populations

WARM SUMMERS ARE dramatically reducing populations of cranefly, beter known as the daddy long legs, which in turn is having a severe impact on the bird populations which rely on them for food.
New research by a team of bird experts, including Newcastle University’s Dr Mark Whittingham, spells out for the first time how climate change [...]