Blog Roll review of the year

2010 has been a mixed year in the blogosphere, Martin decided to end his 'Gullivers Travels' blog, which was also an inspiration for photography, but on the plus side I've found several excellent new blogs.
So, as last year, I thought I would use this period up to new year to review some of my favourite posts over the past 12 months:
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Life in an Oxfordshire Lawn - Crane Fly: I am a huge fan of Henry Wallon's extraordinary blog on the wildlife found in his garden, but this recent post grabbed my attention:
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http://lifeonanoxfordlawn.blogspot.com/2010/12/crane-fly-in-family-limonia-nebeculosa.html
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In a post in Autumn I tried to identify some of the crane flies I encountered and found it virtually impossible as there are 10,000 species of fly that can be considered as a crane fly  and as Henry discusses it is very difficult to identify them. So full credit to Henry for managing to identify his - remarkable.
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Abingdon Blog -  Fox on Ock Street: I am an avid reader of Backstreeter's Abingdon Blog, showing a daily update in our town and it is the first web site I visit each day (followed by the cricket scores on the BBC).
But this post caught my interest, firstly it is one of the best fox photographs I've seen - a lovely portrait of a young fox cub:
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http://www.abingdonblog.co.uk/?p=275
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But what makes this post is the 10 comments that follow, showing that blogging is as much dependent upon the commenters as the blogger - especially the last one from Lyndsey "... then I see he’s been killed near town.".

About a Brook: Kate's water vole blog is a gem and one of the inspirations behind my own blog, full of interesting information about the water voles that live in Shropshire it is hard to pick out one post, but this one shows the excellent pictures she has managed to capture and follow the same vole as it grows up.
- keep up the good work Kate.
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http://staggsbrook.blogspot.com/2010/08/baby-grown-up.html
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Gardening with binoculars - Starlings: Back in November I wrote a post about starlings at otmoor and mentioned the decline in starlings in the UK in recent years.
I found Gardening with binoculars on the Nature Blog Network and I was fascinated in this post written by Anne McCormack on the same subject. Except hers is written in America, where (as she mentions) starlings were deliberately introduced by the 'The Acclimatization Society' who wanted to introduce european wildlife into America, especially those mentioned in the works of Shakespeare.
Something which is completely unnecessary, as Anne goes onto show, American wildlife is just (if not more) wonderful than what we have in the UK and just makes you wonder, what were our fore bearers thinking.
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http://gardeningwithbinoculars.blogspot.com/2010/12/critical-mass-of-starlings.html
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Terry Whittaker - Water Voles: Terry Whittaker is a professional photographer based in Kent and his  blog covers many subject, from the depressing - the trade in tiger parts and bear bile to the uplifting - pine martens caught on a camera trap.
But my favourite post of Terry's is his water vole films, which in a few seconds encapsulates why these are one of my favourite animals.
Now I have finally made the leap into DSLR terrioritary, it's very tempting to attend one of Terry's water vole photography workshops.
http://terrywhittakerphoto.blogspot.com/2010/06/mill-stream-water-vole-updates.html
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A huge thank you to all the blog writers featured and those who haven't, I have learnt a great deal from all these blogs.