When David Alejandro Sánchez Gómez photographed this orchid in Colombia, he didn't know how special it would turn out to be. 🧵⤵️

Website Task Flowchart xkcd.com/3175/

A pretty Azure-winged Magpie (Cyanopica cyanus) spotted at Century Park, Shanghai, China on 3 Nov 2025. A common bird in urban parks and moves around in flocks. On iNaturalist [ www.inaturalist.org/observations... ]. #iNaturalist #Nature #Photography #China #Shanghai #Birds #Aves

New Holland Honeyeaters. Husband Damian @ninoxconnivens.bsky.social has been photographing one of our most common backyard birds, the New Holland Honeyeater. They are breeding within a few metres of our lounge room window. Yes, I know how lucky I am!

Today we offer a Tamil Lacewing (Cethosia mahratta) from Goa, India. It was photographed by Greenwings guest John C, during our unique butterfly tour there. Another tour that has enabled us to donate funds to support the work of @europebutterfly.bsky.social #AdventCalendar

Intriguing. But more research needed. "Neuroscientists [...] are working out how the weight-loss drugs suppress addiction by acting on hormone receptors in brain regions that control craving, reward and motivation." #Drugs #Addiction #Biology #Research #GLP1

"[T]imber skyscrapers are not where a shift to wooden construction will have the greatest impact. The main gains will be found in the more numerous mid-rise buildings that make up a sizeable proportion of the world’s cities." #Construction #Wood #Buildings #Environment

"By examining the chemical traces inside a turtle’s claw, we can tell whether the animal grew up in the wild or in captivity." #Wildlife #Smuggling #Environment

Researchers in Malaysia have discovered an incredible new endemic ‘fairy lantern’ species with fewer than 20 individuals known to exist in the wild. 🔗 Learn all about it on the @pensoft.net blog: blog.pensoft.net/2025/12/02/n...

"[Ice XXI] which exists at room temperature and is structurally distinct from all previously observed phases of ice, was produced by rapidly compressing water to high pressures of 2 GPa." #Physics #Ice #Materials #Water

A Trigonarthris atrata flower longhorn feeds from the spring blooms of a rough-leafed dogwood. Austin, Texas.

Blue Jays having a bit of a scrum in the snow.

Good morning from Greece! For day 4 of my #orchid #AdventCalendar we have: Ophrys iricolor / Ophrys fusca subsp. iricolor Fairly easily recognised by the iridescent colouring of the speculum, but the most definitive ID feature is the red found under the lip. #OrchidsOfRhodes

Another comic from this past year. Sometimes I'm in awe about how incredibly small birds can be.

This is a wild story. These clams increased arsenic levels in the water.

#ArtAdventCalendar Dec. 3 An Eastern Kingbird flys over a prairie marsh hunting for insects. #Birds #photography #wildlife 🪶

mundane perhaps .... but sheeeesh what a beautiful animal mule deer doe, Bosque del Apache

Bridge Clearance xkcd.com/3174/

Somebody asked me if I could set up an annual pay option on my Patreon, so I enabled it just now! As an annual supporter you get a discount. www.patreon.com/birdandmoon Thank you so much to my patrons for creating such an upbeat space 🐦

Moth Advent 3. Back to Surrey mid-May for another evening on the heath, but on the way I stopped in Berkshire to scratch a long-time itch – Geoff! And he didn’t disappoint. Alabonia geoffrella isn’t just one of Britain’s most beautiful moths, it’s one of our most beautiful animals. #TeamMoth

A Chinese Blackbird (Turdus mandarinus) spotted at Century Park, Shanghai, China on 3 Nov 2025. This one was perched inside the canopy, and I needed to twist and turn to get shots. On iNaturalist [ www.inaturalist.org/observations... ]. #iNaturalist #Nature #China #Shanghai #Birds #Aves

I've made some smaller beanie versions of the Devonian jawless fish - Zenaspis! At 25cm long, these are lifesize! www.palaeoplushies.com/shop/zenaspis I ship worldwide from the UK, US tariffs collected and pre-paid for easy delivery!

Very nearly done on a long review of this spectacular book, King Tyrant by @markwitton.bsky.social, published by @princetonupress.bsky.social Cannot recommend it enough, buy it now! #dinosaurs #books

"[T]he black feathers of the magnificent riflebird (Ptiloris magnificus), native to the rainforests of New Guinea and northern Australia, naturally absorb an astounding 99.95 percent of light." #Ultrablack #Nature #Biology #Materials

For today's #AdventCalendar to celebrate the 20+ tours that have helped us generate funds for our friends at @europebutterfly.bsky.social here is a Western Red Charaxes (Charaxes cynthia) on one of our Ghana butterfly tours.

Double-barred Finches are sometimes referred to as Owl Finches, I love the beautiful black & white markings on their wings! rachelhollis.com/product/doub... #drawing #art #birds #birdart #wildlife

2nd day of December so I think 2 pics are justified! 'The Orchid of Light' - Ophrys lucis / Ophrys argolica subsp. lucis. #Orchids #OrchidsOfRhodes #AdventCalender

Today we're talking about history and myth-making in Ada Palmer's "Inventing the Renaissance"–what rethinking the past can tell us about the present, as well as the fascinating speculative questions we find there.

Can you power your computer by typing? What the latest What If? video in collaboration with @minuteearth.bsky.social! www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L44...

A lovely Daurian Redstart (Phoenicurus auroreus) spotted at Pujiang Countryside Park, Shanghai, China on 2 Nov 2025. It perched nearby and started calling, giving us time to get shots. On iNaturalist [ www.inaturalist.org/observations... ]. #iNaturalist #Nature #China #Shanghai #Birds #Aves

A shelf - or two? - of unread books? Seems we have good company: "... literary texts that refer to books never read, including Robert Musil, Graham Greene, Paul Valéry, Anatole France, and David Lodge." #Books #UnreadBooks #UmbertoEco

As I've done the past couple years, I'll be posting my favorite images from 2025 throughout December, one a day. Here's a close image of a little blue heron with a green tree frog who's fighting for dear life, trying to pry open its beak. #birds

Following on from our last post about donating to @europebutterfly.bsky.social we're going to share some images from the tours where those funds have been generated from. Beginning with this, a gorgeous Bhutan Glory (Bhutanitis lidderdali) in Bhutan, by guest Allan F. #AdventCalendar

This male Resplendent Quetzal was a nice surprise at our cabin when we arrived at San Gerardo de Dota this afternoon. #CostaRica #birds

Wildlife tracking! I'm reposting things I made this past year. If you look closely at the deer tracks you'll see I added the hint that they're double registering (hind foot is stepping into the same spot as front foot).

A *teensy* baby Tityus scorpion (less than 2cm) enjoying a hard earned meal - a small cricket. Photographed in the Ecuadorian Amazon. These arboreal scorpions sit on bushes and trees and you can easily get stung by them simply when you brush against them without noticing. Ask me how I know.

A bit late kicking off #ChemAdvent day 1, but here we are! This year I'm finding chemical connections between some previous ChemAdvent editions 🧪 First up, earthy pyrazines are the connection between the smells of chocolate and green bean casserole 🍫

China's huge JUNO neutrino detector turned on three months ago, and has already achieved new levels of sensitivity in studying these mysterious particles. The detector weighs 20,000 tons & contains 45,000 sensors watching for rare neutrino interactions. 🧪🔭 www.prisma.uni-mainz.de/outreach/pre...

New at #Patreon: an illustrated review of what we know, and some of what we don't, about the colours and patterns of ancient marine invertebrates (ft. trilobites, orthoceratoids, ammonites and Cambrian critters). Check it out at www.patreon.com/c/markwitton #paleoart #fossils #paleontology #sciart

Rabbit rabbit! December 1st came early, thanks insomnia! Here's a White-spotted Salamander (Plethodon cylindraecus) from central North Carolina this fall. #herps #salamanders #NaturePhotography 🌿

A Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) spotted at Pujiang Countryside Park, Shanghai, China on 2 Nov 2025. It was fishing in a lake. Locally, it can be seen fishing in storm drains. On iNaturalist [ www.inaturalist.org/observations... ]. #iNaturalist #Nature #Photography #Shanghai #China #Birds #Aves

Moving location for the next few entries of #BestOfNature2025 Here is the wonderfully spiky Spanish Festoon larva ❤️ 🛡️ (May, Algarve Portugal 🇵🇹) #NatureWithin #TeamMoth

"Today, for most people, watching a movie has gone from being a shared experience to a siloed and personalised act of private, if not solitary, consumption" #History #Singapore #Cinemas

"[T]he Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) announced that all trading on the stock market would be suspended from Thursday, 2 December 1985 [for three days], until further notice. [...] What caused the shutdown was the collapse of Pan-Electric Industries" #History #Singapore #Companies

"Jan Beránek embarked on an eight-year quest [...] to uncover the life of his granduncle. [...] My granduncle Silvestr went to Singapore at a very young age, with a mission to establish and develop the business of the Bata Shoe Company in Southeast Asia." #History #Singapore #Czech #Bata

Great writeup from @startswithabang.bsky.social of an extraordinary hypothesis: the reason the two sides of the moon are so different might come down to tidal locking when the moon was still forming, and chemical gradients in the proto-lunar material due to radiant heat from the Earth!

46 submissions! We're halfway there for this season's art book. Get in while you can!

Another from the archives, a baby Southern Alligator Lizard (Elgaria multicarinata) peeking out amid just-sprouting grass. These are common lizards in my yard, and a favorite detail is the shape of their pupils - the points top and bottom remind me of two Hershey's kisses stacked base-to-base. 🦎🌿📷

This is the Sunburst Candy Spider from Thailand. Not AI (sucks to have to declare this). Very real and had been on my wish list for a long time. The taxonomic placement is unclear, so we are leaving it at Cyrtarachninae.

The Perseverance rover on Mars has serendipitously recorded sounds and electromagnetic signals that are characteristic of lightning in dust storms go.nature.com/4oj1wLF