Are mandarin ducks real?

A lazy #wildflowerhour this week! Forget-me-not and marsh marigold just a few yards from the back door #cheating

Coriolis force in action. Mesmerising!

Handy

Ah. Must be almost Easter.

Spent a delightful morning in the garden of a National Treasure, recording the Easter Weekend edition of Gardeners' Question Time #GQT Clue.....

This handsome garden visitor is apparently a Common Mourning Bee. A cuckoo species, it lays its eggs in the nests of Hairy-footed Flower bees which also emerge at this time of year.

That burst of warm weather has got things moving! Lesser celandine, wood anemone, first cowslip and yes, the bluebells are just warming up for the big show. #wildflowerhour

Very dry air at the moment, typical of subsidence of an airmass in the centre of an area of low pressure and a contributory factor in the large day/night temperature ranges we're seeing - over 20C in some locations.

Bridleway

Currently starring in the garden

Welcoming the Equinox light in at La Hougue Bie. A deliberate and powerful Neolithic alignment that illuminates the burial chamber just twice a year. Very lucky to be invited to witness this prehistoric spectacle. 🏺

Fancy a bit of walrus spotting?

🥵 Astonishing heat in the West this week as arguably the most abnormal #heatwave we’ve encountered in the Spring historical record breaks monthly March records by leaps and bounds! Take a look at the forecast max temps this week vs the current March records (bottom). Breaking by remarkable margins!

Real-time wind direction indicator on Amsterdam Centraal Station. Would love to know how the mechanism works.

Camellia 'Silver Wedding'

Oh look at that… with impeccable timing, @evanhd.bsky.social appears to be back talking about heat pumps on the BBC! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Blackthorn starting to flower this week in local hedgerows and it looks like this hawthorn won't be far behind! #wildflowerhour #signsofspring

Some might call them weeds. I call them welcome garden visitors. White and blue forms of sweet violet #wildflowerhour #signsofspring

The Poet Laureate is a secret weather nerd. Love it.

Signs of Spring

Did you wake up to dust on your car this morning? 🤔 Saharan dust will still be in the air this weekend, so you may want to hold off washing your car! 👇

BBC News - Sheep are disappearing from the UK's hills - and its dinner plates - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Skies turning increasingly milky in SE England this afternoon as a dense plume of Saharan dust spreads up from the south. Look for dust on cars tomorrow as the thickest of the plume drifts across, some of it being brought down by rain.

Please warn people about HIGH and VERY HIGH 7-10/10 #AirPollution from this #SaharanDust episode to Sunday. Health advice webpages from Defra and Met Office have gone offline. It may be life or death for some people uk-air.defra.gov.uk and uk-air.defra.gov.uk/air-pollutio...

BBC News - 'Blood rain' and fiery sunsets as Saharan dust sweeps UK www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...

Primrose and cherry plum bang on cue for the first day of meteorological Spring #wildflowerhour

Hello hazel

Soggy stiles around Colwith - and yes I know it was 19C and sunny in the south thank you very much @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Lake District morning

Wind-blasted stile on the top of Lingmoor Fell, being slowly absorbed into the landscape as scree and silt builds up on the far side. Langdale Pikes as backdrop. @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Birch catkins braving the downpours in a dripping patch of Lake District temperate rainforest #wildflowerhour

New generation record in 2026: As of January, wind and solar have now consistently out-generated fossil gas power for 12-months in a row, for the first time. A threshold has now been crossed where wind and solar have generated more than gas through winter, spring, summer and autumn.

BBC News - Reading University's unbroken rain record ends after 37 days - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hairy-footed flower bee basking on the bee hotel when the sun came out a couple of days ago

😯

Well, well...

France has issued red alerts for flooding in three départements as the aftermath of Storm Nils causes chaos across the country: buff.ly/VN7qftI

The Dawlish - Teignmouth railway line feels like the absolute front line of climate adaptation in Britain (a test we are not passing so far). And yet somehow, somehow, this article manages to go in-depth on the problems with the line without mentioning the climate once. The sea is literally higher!

Remarkable that climate change isn't mentioned anywhere in this article on the fragility of the Dawlish stretch of the SW main line BBC News - The saga of a £165m rail line that keeps causing travel chaos www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'm going to stop complaining about the rain now

As with everything else climate crisis-related, the sooner we take action to massively increase our domestic fruit & veg output, the better prepared we will be when our current fruit & veg imports decline away to nothing. It's not if, but when. www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/floods-...

Outstanding

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago etc

Weather-related insurance payouts set to jump after UK storms and flooding Insurers are set to pay out £1.6bn for weather-related property claims made last year as homeowners in the UK faced storms, flooding and higher rebuilding costs after catastrophes.

It has now been 31 days since the rain started here in Reading, and it has rained every single day since; the previous record of 23 consecutive days has long been smashed, with daily rainfall records going back to 1908.

The 'peublo blanco' of Grazalema, Andalusia, cementing its reputation as the wettest place in Spain

Early arrival

Between 1979 and 1982 American geologist William Barbat produced 18 issues of the "CO2 Newsletter". 8 pages packed with news, excerpts from recent reports and analysis. Accurate, prescient, heart-breaking. The third is now released. pdf and text via here - allouryesterdays.info/2026/02/08/c... 1/n

The Lindsey Vonn incident brilliantly handled by Chemmy Alcott and Hazel Irvine. Outstanding broadcast professionalism.