Late one Friday evening in early March, I received a most peculiar message. A local birdwatcher had been wandering along a forest ride in the Derwent Valley in the Peak District National Park when he had come across the body of a squirrel, lying on its back, on top of a wall.

On closer examination, he saw the animal was lying on a mat of strands of baler twine and that a translucent substance had been applied in obvious…

Following a ‘please help’ call from the Police, my morning’s work suddenly changed!

I was on the road in five minutes, armed with binoculars, camera, video, map and notebook. Thankfully, this was not a long drive and I arrived at a sleepy country village some forty minutes later.

As I stepped out of the car, the evidence was all around like some type of training video or TV ‘whodunnit’.

A Police…