I thought I’d settle down to write something uncontroversial - so I wrote about stork releases. With Natural England recently declaring white storks non-native, can their releases be justified? A tale in 3 parts. petemrcooper.substack.com/p/to-stork-o...

I thought I’d settle down to write something uncontroversial - so I wrote about stork releases. With Natural England recently declaring white storks non-native, can their releases be justified? A tale in 3 parts. petemrcooper.substack.com/p/to-stork-o...

The temperatures taken in my Glow-worm rearing shed yesterday. Ambient conditions are better for breeding native invertebrates, but thankfully its shaded position keeps the shed at least 2-3 degrees cooler than outside. All are doing well.

A study focusing on interactions between European wildcats and domestic cats found evidence of behavioural barriers for both hybridisation and disease transmission, including larger wildcats excluding domestic cats from their territories, and sexual selection by wildcat females 🐈

A snail puts up a bubble wall to defend itself from Glow-worm larvae, but the paralysis from the toxin is already beginning to take effect - more is delivered in another bit for good measure. 145 Glow-worm larvae have completed their second winter and are due to pupate in the next couple of months

This really does feel like a distant time now. 2 years into Brexit and Trump v0.1, we knew the world had taken a turn. But before that all got to its current extremes, before Covid, and when X was Twitter and it was a busy and generally nicer place to be as we hit the ‘sweet spot’ with social media

A stonker of a morning on the Mendips - Adders, Green Tiger Beetle and Bloody-nose Beetles all coming out to play

This is what I want on the £5 note. Truly the definition of British nature

Book announcement!! 🎉 CREATURES OF STORY AND SONG looks through Britain’s stories and poems to rediscover our lost species. It’s time to remember what people thought about wolves, lynxes, great whales, great auks, sturgeon & more when they were all still here! 🐺🦫🐳💚 @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

Dreamt I was bitten by a Smooth Newt last night. Not sure what that foretells.

Update - Beavers are now woke! And a dam sight more useful than Farage

We should be remembering the beauty of the natural world around us in this dark time - it’s more important than any other time that people can find respite and beauty and no what they stand to lose. Also Churchill probably would’ve voted Reform tbh.

🪪 European wildcat (Felis silvestris) One of the UK's rarest mammals | Accomplished mesopredator | Cultural icon | UK's last native cat species | Experienced camera trap model | Working parent | Species reintroduction specialist Cairngorms National Park, Scotland

Maybe it’s a sign of the times we’re in - first time I’ve seen this used as a rewilding justification. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

They also look like Glow-worm larvae you ordered from Wish.

I will never not adore "and allies" in a fieldguide title. Don't mess with the grasshoppers or the earwigs and crickets and cockroaches will fuck you up

When your proposed source of birds comes from a different subspecies from Scandinavia, an area even cooler than the region where you want to release is and warming climate is likely to be the major extinction driver, genetics matters very bugger much actually.

I was really happy to be involved with writing the strategy for Sonja and Perrin’s land in Wiltshire, which contains some absolutely stunning chalk downland. And I managed to find the DoBs last year! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I just don't see how this wasn't intentional on the BBC's part

If you zoology folks haven’t found metazooa yet, welcome to your new morning routine. Who needs wordle? 🐜 Animal #937 🐅 I figured it out in 2 guesses! 🟥🟩 🔥 18 | Avg. Guesses: 5.7 metazooa.com #metazooa

That guy who wrote The Peace Of Wild Things simply never considered the blue balls of the dunnock in late winter.

If you loved Detectorists and you haven’t yet watched ‘Small Prophets’, get on iplayer and do so immediately. It’s classic Mackenzie Crook with his gentle appreciation of nature sown in subtly and beautifully at times.

A well-run project that restored the north-west European population of Dalmatian Pelican would be a massive boost to the global population of this threatened species and is supported by the chair of the IUCN pelican specialist group. But no, let’s take pot-shots.

As someone who had past affiliation with Goldsmith, I very much endorse this message. The threat posed by Reform now is too great to ignore any boost given to it ‘within’ our sector. Sitting back and watching is how very dangerous things happen.

Further indictment that the conservation and rewilding need to drop further involvement with Goldsmith right now. Political allies for nature will not be found in the far right.

Well of course. Ben Goldsmith working with Reform. Red flags waving madly. It is incompatible to be a voice for nature and a voice for Reform. Environmental justice and social justice are intertwined.

(from www.instagram.com/nobodyssweet...)

One of my new procrastination pastimes is timelapsing ecological restoration/wilding projects on agri-reversal land. The @nationaltrust.org.uk riverlands restoration at the Holnicote Estate, Somerset (1/4)

To summarise BBC reporting on the collapse of the American Republic: "It's unclear who is to blame for the killing, the victim or the people who shot him." Such 'balance' aids the fascist war on epistemology. Reality does not reside halfway between a lie and the truth.

was briefly so excited reading this until I realised he meant Davos

If you try and get a quote for professional indemnity insurance or such like from the major market comparison sites, entering ‘ecologist’ into the trade search will come back with ‘sorry, that’s not a trade we know!’ Despite them claiming to have over 1k options. Hmm.

Started watching Years & Years 7 years late to the party… oof, I suppose there was never a good time to start was there?

I’m part of the local toad patrol, which brings to joy to dozens in the community doing their bit to maintain one of the increasingly vulnerable populations of this species. Sadly they could be under even more threat beyond the roads if the golf club gets their way. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The rewilding movement needs to distance itself from bigots like Goldsmith. There is no climate (and environmental) justice without social justice. When these people show us who they are, we need to pay attention.

Thought you might enjoy this @georgemonbiot.bsky.social - you may even have snuck into the narrative!

Trying to be more active here again. So starting my comeback with a short story in the form of a news feature from an alternative universe - one where the Pleistocene megafauna of mammoths, sabre-toothed cats, giant wombats and so much more survived to today petemrcooper.substack.com/p/the-last-b...

My brother’s put forward the first motion to give a British river the same legal rights as people! Very proud and would love to see more of this from other local authorities. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Thanks to @petemrcooper.bsky.social who reviews our book Great Misconceptions - Rewilding Myths and Misunderstandings in this. @markavery.bsky.social @irishrainforest.bsky.social @chrissperring.bsky.social @iancarter67.bsky.social @landethics.bsky.social #books #rewilding

This is a really satisfying image. A new Dalmatian Pelican colony established themselves on artificial islands in Bulgaria, but this photo looks like it could easily be in front of a retail park in Norfolk!

Behind all that Lynx chat, Britain’s more successfully ‘bombed’ mammal have come a wee bit closer to home.

So this is instant dystopian #Anthropocene #ClimateChange gif material 👇

The red-backed shrike, known as the butcher bird for its habit of impaling prey corpses on thorns etc, has been virtually extinct as a UK breeding species for decades. That it was once common is apparent from Richard Jefferies’s description of taking the train from London to Brighton in the 1880s.

The wood is wild. The wood is wyrd. In childhood we know it as the living border with Faerie. As adults we still half-suspect it is a pocket of high strangeness. Any examination of the living current of folklore would give us plenty of reasons to reinforce this summation. – Dr. M. Benn, 1982 #Woods

Christmas Eve Eve present yesterday in the form of two White-tailed Eagles at Keyhaven - who needs Santa when you have Roy Dennis. Cherry on top of great morning’s birding with pals which included Spoonbill, Curlew, hunting Kingfisher and 100s of Brent Geese and Golden Plover.

I used to watch Barn Owls, which nested in the barn and hunted just outside, in this meadow as a teenager 13 years ago. It’s now about as far from optimal barnie habitat as you can get. But at least the Little Egrets poking round the cattle, which I’ve never seen here before, were happy.

An amazing opportunity to join the WildwoodTrust team and help to lead on rewilding our UK native species as our Director of Conservation and Rewilding. www.wildwoodtrust.org/job-vacancie...

Well that’s just made me cry on the inside. (FYI both the dog and the aquarium are now dead)

Grey Wagtails are another one of those birds we under appreciate due to their familiarity. Just watch them, they’re like garden birds wearing met gala dresses doing dance racing. If they were super rare y’all would be all over that shit.

So I’ve just begun importing my old tweets with blue ark. 14 years of Twitter history all descending here! Feels like the last day of unpacking in a new house.