Doing some preparation for a field trip next Monday: Greenhead Ghyll, Grasmere. A good start for a new story. 🤞

My children's wildlife books can all be ordered on this link. We now have a new compilation edition just released which includes all 4 of our Seasons in the Wild titles for 4-8 year olds: Winter Sleep Busy Spring Wild Summer Autumn Feast uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-...

In celebration of the New Moon - a fox dreaming of the moon 🦊🌀🌑 #NewMoon #FoxoftheDay

🌻 Spring has sprung in the northern hemisphere! To celebrate, we present this spectacular collection of watercolour & pencil illustrations of "British Flowers" by Elizabeth Wharton and Margaret Wharton [1793-1811] on BHL via Oak Spring Garden Foundation: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography... 🧪

Friday #morningread New beginning! Action. Edward Thomas’s ‘Sowing’

Respect today’s new moon in Aries. Ready to receive! 🫴

Found an impressive Sand Martin colony on the Dove at Egginton. I estimated 135 birds in the air around me at one point

European Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) Goyt Valley, Derbyshire, UK, 11/04/2026 ebird.org/checklist/S3... An early returner, freshly arrived from sub-Saharan Africa #ukbirding #birding #birds @derbyshirebirds.bsky.social

Thursday #latenightread Coleridge’s ‘The Nightingale’ and Patrick Dickinson’s ‘Bluebells’. 🌘 soon to the new moon New begining!

Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan are funding an app to attack journalists. Getting smeared by "Objection AI" will become a badge of honor for reporters. I'm glad to see them deepening their relationship just in time for my book, which exposes that very subject. "The Nerd Reich" drops 8/18/26.

Wednesday #afternoonread 🪺 #DorothyWordsworth

On holiday in Derbyshire. Nipped out first thing to investigate the local moor. Not a great haul of birds but delightful to hear so many willow warblers among the birch trees.

🦋 When nature loses diversity, we all lose. Some butterflies are coping better than others, but our State of Yorkshire’s Nature evidence is clear: rare and specialist species are most at risk. Protecting diverse habitats is the key to a nature‑rich Yorkshire. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75kk7p41npo

This lovely video got me thinking. Dippers are considered 'upland' birds, but so was Grey Wagtail until recently. Before deforestation & pollution, maybe Dippers were more widespread in lowland rivers/streams, like Grey Wags now, breeding in tree holes along wild chalk streams in south/east England?

50 years of the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. And the first transect was at Monks Wood (still running), where Ernie Pollard developed the monitoring scheme while working at a precursor of @ukceh.bsky.social One of many long-term legacies of research at Monks Wood, and plenty others still going!

Tuesday #latenightread ‘April Showers’ #GeoffreyChaucer

Monday #latenightread ‘Dipper’, by Norman MacCaig

An opportunity to help out with the Leeds Wild Spaces project sowing wild flower seeds at Middleton Park on 24th April 10am www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leeds-wild...

A reward for late home-comers: A tawny owl! Hooting! (Heard it nearly every night after nine but tonight it was so close to me)

Checked temp&wind yesterday: nothing could be wrong! The golden light on the church reassured me this morning. It’s the right time to take the excursion. I like serendipity and unexpected encounters! But I’ve never thought that all good things could happen to me all together on the same day!

It's a good spot around there for Dippers😉 bsky.app/profile/andy...

The story is long but I’m so blessed and my intuition is right and my eyesight is reliable: I saw the dipper! (South direction facing the sun, not the north side under the bridge)

There are many more Bluebell plants in flower this week, in and around the remnants of our ancient woodland #WoodlandPlants #WildflowerHour

Another new wildflower that I hadn't seen before! I think this was Shining Cranesbill #WildflowerHour

An hour’s birding early this morning at a cold and choppy Eccup Reservoir. Common scoter still present. 26 bird species, including 2 grey wagtails, a singing yellowhammer, and my first swallows of the year (who might have been wondering if it was worth the journey). Several hares also.

My driveway hawthorn. Little early fella. We’ll have to rename this mainstay of hedgerows the April Tree in future years. #SpringIsHere #Hawthorn #ClimateChange

Wheatear male in the #YorkshireDales yesterday (pic). Lots around but not all of them up in moorland territories yet. Merlin chasing Meadow pipits before they've had chance to do much about making more mipits too. Still Fieldfare and Golden plover, in wintery weather. #Yorkshirebirding

Sunday #morningread A. E. Housman’s ‘The Lent Lily’

Nearly 1 in 6 UK species are threatened with extinction. We've lost 97% of our wildflower meadows since the 1930s. We have 73 million fewer birds than in the 1970s - a decline of almost a third. And yet some politicians still just see wildlife as a blocker to progress.

It’s gusty again. I always thought that stormy weather must be too harsh for the flowers in spring. But actually they are stronger and more resilient than what I supposed. They know the way to survive in the wind, and the way to grow as well.

First swallow spotted this year. #birding #birdwatching #birdwatchers #nature #naturephotography

First swallow of the season.

First bird of my day: a swallow! A swallow! A swallow!!!! Dedicated to my husband on our 11th wedding anniversary. #firstbirdofmyday #whatsyours

Dippers feeding chicks in the nest #yorksirebirding #ornithology vimeo.com/1182168926

Saturday #morningread William Cullen Bryant’s ‘The Yellow Violet’ Have a wonderful weekend! ☀️

My view is that researchers who submit/publish papers with fake citations should face serious sanctions (which is not currently the case). Accurate documentation of sources is really the bare minimum when it comes to research integrity and academic practice. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/... #WilliamHazlitt

Friday #morningread 🌳 Susan McKeown’s ‘An Droighneán Donn: The Blackthorn Tree’

Thursday #nightread🌛 Laurence Binyon’s ‘An April Day’

WHITETHROAT is back! Welcome home, my little scratchy friend.

Bluebells for the morning We need more. I love spring

Happy publication day to Susie White and Nature's Almanac 🍃 This beautifully compact book invites you to pause and notice one remarkable phenomenon of the natural world each day. Scroll for today's entry 🌼 🍃 saraband.net/sb-title/nat... #Booksky #NatureWriting #Wildlife #Nature 📚💙

My book (did I mention my book?) The Tattooed Hills is published today! In bookshops in many places. The tour begins next week, kicking off at The White Horse Bookshop, Marlborough, on 16th April. Tickets via my bio or here www.whitehorsebooks.co.uk/event-ticket... Out now in hardback,audio,ebook.

this would fix me

The BBS is a phenomenal achievement. But trends for 'my' main study species are all very bleak for 1995-2024 population change: Marsh Tit: 53% decline Willow Tit: 92% decline(!!) Wood Warbler: 82% decline Wood Warbler is already generally considered irrecoverable in England. #ornithology

1/ The 2025 BBS Report is out now! It was a record year for volunteers taking part, with 2,800+ visiting 4,058 survey squares across the UK, Channel Islands & Isle of Man. A huge thank you to our volunteers! @btobirds.bsky.social @jncc.bsky.social @rspbscience.bsky.social #Ornithology

Got two soaps from the Chinese grocery store. Weather changed suddenly-I need to clean some spring-summer clothes…(sometimes, I like to wash some white shirts by myself… water makes my mind clearer & inspires my writing)

Do you or one of your colleagues need an index created for a book in the humanities? I make beautiful indexes (yes, such a thing does exist!) I have space to take on 1-2 additional projects in April/May. Get in touch!

Similarly, Voyager 1 and 2 contain recorded messages of peace from UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim — who hid his Nazi past and complicity in war crimes.