Looks powerful & sharp! Mystery ? #mandible ( If a #beetle some staphylinids have sharp mouthparts arthropod-systematics.arphahub.com/article/1145... )

This one in April sunshine (on a fencepost near the River Spey.)

This one on the wing in Strathspey, yesterday.

Tiny but a really characterful creature! (Cionus weevils have been mentioned in an old country Diary www.theguardian.com/environment/... BSCG finds one species on figwort on a threatened Strathspey site in the Cairngorms National Park (photo May) #ACMinsect

To reduce disease, we all need to make some urgent but simple changes to how we feed our garden birds. See our website for the latest guidance: brnw.ch/21x1t4w

Archinemapogon yildizae emerged today from Birch Polypore collected near Aviemore last month. First time I've recorded this attractive scarce and localised Highland speciality #teammoth @savebutterflies.bsky.social #nature #cairngorm #scotland #wildlife #macro

(Includes comment "that e-fuels are at best a “niche solution” in road transport.." & transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs) "is a more sensible move".

Any term that has the # prefix will show you posts with that tag

Likens a #Swift flight to an "aerial shark, in perpetual motion" & mentions the season we have to admire swifts is short & "spectacular"

Not harmless debate but an "undoubted" #Farage falsehood if "handed the role on March 10." (Also “anti net zero rhetoric isn’t harmless debate. It’s a weapon of mass delusion” dalevince.com/news/governm... ) #trust #politics #Factcheck @theferret.scot @privateeyenews.bsky.social

Good to see an able politician with a record of standing up for #nature & acting as @naturechampions.bsky.social (see greens.scot/news/poisoni...) among candidates in next month’s election. #politics #Scotland @raptorpersuk.bsky.social @rspb.bsky.social

"to call it a culture shock would be an understatement."

Typed out in “beautiful but harsh surroundings” www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scot... .

Nicknamed the “God squad” by groups who say "it can decide a species’ fate" The Endangered Species Committee "includes several Trump administration officials" & is chaired by Burgum (who “has a history of rubbing shoulders with coal execs” www.desmog.com/2025/01/27/t... )

Latest (#April 2) @strathspeyherald.co.uk #CountryDiary mentions collective name for a group of Bullfinches a bellowing & indicates these seldom found far from woodland, so Corcan-coille (Coille - Gaelic for woodland) among apt names "for this enigmatic songbird." #Pyrrhula

"there is no better example of nature’s generosity" than a #dandelion www.theguardian.com/environment/... #countrydiary

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is a London-based free-market thinktank… www.desmog.com/institute-ec...

The Institute of Economic Affairs appeared on British media “an average of 14 times a day in the last year”

Cool (& informative C4 report recently www.channel4.com/news/red-squ... )

Includes comment“Some politicians are trying to sell us a dangerous fantasy of endless gas reserves, when the truth is – after 50 years of drilling – we have already burned most of it,”

Reform’s farming adviser apparently "wants to double the price of wheat – and hence bread – in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, and as Trump’s war on Iran is causing fertiliser prices to spike." #politics

#Climate policy "has not failed, it has been defeated". Key to this defeat is "the organised production, by and for fossil fuel interests, of strategic counter-science and anti-climate policy disinformation, ..."

"All six incidents relate to discharges of wastewater" from a private #sewage system "connected to the clubhouse".

"Only last summer Farage said he was determined to bring half of the struggling UK water industry into public ownership, insisting it would cost “a lot less” than the £50bn estimated by experts, especially if companies were allowed to fail first. " #Trust #politics

Morning light in Hazel in Strathspey (before snow)

"Cheeping flocks of House Sparrow once tumbled from untidy nests and wallowed in urban dust baths. Now the species is in decline and has been on the UK Red List since 2002."

"The project is open to people of all ages and experience levels, across the UK "

Mentions: "From 1709 until 1830, successive governments imposed an ever-increasing tax on candles, which could only be legally bought from authorised dealers. So, the rural poor resorted to rushlights" #Juncus

New conservation concern -see area circled in main photo (26 Mar '26) for precarious inland quarry population of Sand Bear Arctosa perita (inset Mar 2024 photo) & Mining Bees (including Andrena marginata) in Cairngorms National Park in an undesignated biodiversity hotspot.

This is bad news for #nature ( as is absence of #transparency about money influencing media & supporting Fossil fuels that: "benefitted from $1.3tn in explicit subsidies in 2022 and $5.7tn in implicit subsidies, according to the International Monetary Fund. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/m... )

#ClimateActionNow (An article in the Spring Cairmghoms Campaigner (newsletter of the Cairngorms Campaign discusses sme 2025 wildfires)

My first Osprey of 2026, Loch of Kinnordy, Angus, 22/03/2026. Blue AV6 ringed Nr. Inverness, 2018 #birdingscotland #Osprey

Inspiring photos! Both Peacock & Comma butterflies were out early here in Strathspey too (photos in sunshine on 20 March)

Are you a skilled birder and want to help others to improve their skills? 🐦 Apply for our Training Officer role via www.bto.org/jobs The successful candidate will join the team at BTO HQ in Norfolk who deliver courses, both in person and online. Application deadline: Sunday 5 April. #Ornithology

Concludes "paludiculture can be a multifunctional land use, enhancing" #biodiversity "in addition to other known benefits". #WorldWaterDay

It's mostly state funded. To call it public funding implies tax-payers have a clue their money is being used to fund a state-affiliated neoliberal think-tank and austerity legitimiser that works against their best interests.

The IFS is mostly publicly funded and its current position on net zero is almost the exact opposite of this.

Indicates Subsidies 2015-2021,stable but more than doubled in 2022 subsequently falling to EUR 111 billion in 2023 when over “60% of all fossil fuel subsidies” spent were in Germany Poland & France www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/...

As Antonio Gramsci pointed out, "common sense" is a "chaotic aggregate" of opinion, which is strongly affected by mainstream narratives. It feeds back into those narratives, reinforcing the status quo. He also observed that "The dominant ideas in any society are the ideas of the ruling class".

You might have formed the impression that Paul Johnson, former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, knows what he's talking about. The media treats him like the voice of God. But here he is - and not for the first time - talking out of his hat. Let's break it down in a short thread. 🧵

Utterly insane, but par for the course for this dismal, ignorant, government www.theguardian.com/environment/...

#polution #health

Yes (Mentions delayed mowing can benefit primroses)

Good to see BBC R4 are looking at Heat Pumps www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... #ClimateActionNow

Looking forward to talk tonight (12 March) 7.30PM at the Hub Grantown-on-Spey ‘Rescuing Rare Cairngorms Invertebrates’ 🐛🦋🐞

#Warwickshire Cooucillors repeated "attacks on staff, partner institutions and use of his role for constant cheap and nasty political points scoring" considered to violate "rule of law, democratic norms and basic decency." #standards

Reminder the the deadline to apply to become our new Wales Officer is midnight tonight, Monday 23 Feb. So if you plan to apply, better get your skates on: you don't want to miss out! Here's that link again: bsbi.org/about/people...

While the exact cause of the seabird wreck is still to be determined, recent winter storms will have made conditions at sea very challenging for seabirds