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Mark Cocker

Headshot of Mark Cocker

Mark Cocker is an author and naturalist, based in Derbyshire. He writes for the Guardian’s Country Diary

April 2026

  • Ring ouzel perched on lichen-covered drystone wall on a frosty morning

    Country diary
    Country diary: The most magical of frost-coated mornings

  • A robin singing at dawn.

    Country diary
    Country diary: A bum note amid the dawn chorus

March 2026

  • An array of wildflowers including chios chamomile and peacock anemone, in the Mani region of Greece

    Country diary
    Country diary: A wildflower display of astonishing richness

  • Snowdrops in Mark Cocker's garden.

    Country diary
    Country diary: Our patch of snowdrops is part of the family

February 2026

  • pruning the orchard and harvesting the last of 7 months' worth of fruit

    Country diary
    Country diary: It’s extraordinary how much our orchards are founded on connection

  • A limestone wall smothered in bryophytes

    Country diary
    Country diary: Succumbing to the serpent of shining green

January 2026

  • Credit: Mark Cocker Caption: A willow thicket near Buxton, Derbyshire, where local red deer routinely come to wallow

    Country diary
    Country diary: Is the willow Britain’s finest tree? In one sense, it is

  • Velvet shank mushrooms growing on one of the 22,000 trees planted at Mousley Bottom in the 1980s.

    Country diary
    Country diary: Here for all to see – nature’s remarkable ability to rebound

December 2025

  • Goldfinch on teasel

    Country diary
    Country diary: Here’s the charm of the goldfinch – we want them to be near us

  • male mandarin duck on the water

    Country diary
    Country diary: Few do magnificence quite like the mandarin duck

November 2025

  • A song thrush.

    Country diary
    Country diary: What is the thrust of the song thrush song? It has to be joy

  • Young European flat oysters to be translocated to the North Sea brick bed.

    Country diary
    Country diary: Pearls of the ocean that might just return to British shores

October 2025

  • Knots in a tumbling display.

    Country diary
    Country diary: The salty symphony of waders in autumn

  • © Mark Cocker pic 1 hawthorn berries on Bonsall Moor

    Country diary
    Country diary: The unlikely success of wildlife in lead country

September 2025

  • Red admiral on a rotting apple

    Country diary
    Country diary: Sometimes only the most rotten fruit will do

  • The wasps’ nest destroyed by a badger.

    Country diary
    Country diary: Badger v wasp, or, the aftermath of the carnage

August 2025

  • A stoat by a capstone wall, Derbyshire.

    Country diary
    Country diary: Even stoats need a break from the ecstasy of being a stoat

  • Silhouette of a thrush on a branch, beak open

    Country diary
    Country diary: Summer’s silence still needs to be heard

July 2025

  • Breeding house martins

    Country diary
    Country diary: For these birds, home is where the food is

  • Combs Moss at dusk Can I get these two pics uploaded to the grid please? They are for Mark Cocker's country diary, to be published on 1 July. Both pics to be credited to Mark Cocker. Many thanks, Mike Pic 1, caption = Common Cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium) Pic 2, caption = Combs Moss at dusk

    Country diary
    Country diary: The sense of emptiness in these driven-grouse moors stirs a deep melancholy

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