This year I was lucky enough to go to India and spend some time at Nagarhole and Bandipur tiger reserves. Four days was nowhere near enough, I really could have stayed a month. Whilst I did not see the tigers I was hoping for, I saw so much, and lots of amazing bird species, not to mention elephants and a myriad of other mammals. I stayed in the government run Jungle Lodges and can thoroughly recommend them - they are not the last word in refinement, but the top-end rooms are spacious and...

I was lucky enough to go twice this year to Skomer island off the coast of Pembrokeshire, and boy did it deliver. Magical island with more than atlantic puffins to see. I saw lots of wheatear, rock pipit, cough, razor bills, guillemot and lots more - but it is the feel of the place as much anything that leaves its impression on you. There are Iron Age settlement remains, and evidence of occupation dating back to the Neolithic period. I felt some intangible sense of the history as I walked...

We are a nation of animal lovers, and a huge percentage of the UK (12.5m homes) feed wild birds in the garden, myself included. It's a lovely thing to do and brings us all much joy. Garden feeders help wild birds during winter, and during nesting, but all the latest research points to a massive problem. Disease, not least of which is trichomonosis , is being spread through infected garden feeders with devastating effect. A review of the effect on the chaffinch population is alarming, in fact...