We live in interesting times. www.ft.com/content/fdd6...

One of the great ones has left us. RIP Phillipe Gaulier “A clown is innocent” 🌱🔴

I can confidently if sadly describe myself as a former contributor to @washingtonpost.com books. Read all about it in @newyorker.com

Marc Chagall, I and the Village, 1911 https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1134947

Democracy is dying in plain sight. Very proud to have been an occasional contributor to @washingtonpost.com and very sad to see what’s happening today. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

Autumn to spring.

A newborn calf on the sofa for St Brigid’s day via @washingtonpost.com . Happy Imbolc.

IMBOLC (or Imbolg!) Saint Brigid's Day is a Gaelic traditional festival. 1st February is the start of Spring.

Ladybird Nature Corner. Blackbird. (Who doesn’t love a blackbird?) Artist: John Leigh-Pemberton

Great!

Crags of Scafell Pike

Foot of Grasmoor

Skaters in Fredericton Molly Lamb Bobak n.d.

Who said this and when? “Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

Mark Carney's speech at Davos was brilliant. globalnews.ca/news/1162087...

“Oxfam said the $2.5 trillion rise in the wealth of billionaires last year would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over. Their wealth has risen by more than four-fifths since 2020, while nearly half the world’s population lives in poverty, the group said.” Via ABC news.

Fragments of non-local iron pyrite and heat-fractured stone tools were recently discovered at a 400,000 year old site in England suggesting that Neanderthals were making fire much earlier than previously thought! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My key 'Sheds' photo, that set off the whole project Fochriw, 2021 I think

@thomasmike4964.bsky.social happy new year, Mike. How are you doing?

“That those who are safe on land may ever remember and pray for the many who go down to the sea in ships.”

A shovel and its shadow.

What a lovely name for a narrow boat!

David Attenborough [whispering]: “Like a grain of sand in a vast desert, the predator blends seamlessly into its environment, nearly imperceptible to the naked eye.”

Monet rose before dawn to chase first light. He once said "I would like to paint as the bird sings."

Sunrise, Little Adam’s Peak

Very sorry to learn of the death of the brilliant Rachel Cooke who gave me my first - firm but very fair - review as a writer. In gratitude 🙏 observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

If these red flags are an accurate representation of those who have died on Everest then maybe it is time to acknowledge the mountain’s sacred identity as the home of Miyolangsangma and stop going where we are uninvited.

In a very few minutes this little fellow will be released into the ocean where, with a fair metaphorical and actual wind, they will live 100 years longer than me.

Signed copies of THE LANGUAGE OF TREES now available @waterstones.bsky.social in Dorchester. Lovely to see it in the Nature section with WILD SERVICE by @righttoroam.bsky.social, DISPERSALS by @jessicajlee.bsky.social, and other beauties. 🌿 #naturewriting #booksky #rewild

Another glorious forest day (within the M25!)

#NHS A prophetic voice from 1985? The Two Ronnies - www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrqw...

Sad but sadly inevitable news on #biodiversity www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

Recording of BBC radio 'Beyond Belief' I contributed to. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Wage war on nature to build new homes: that’s Labour’s offer, but it’s a con trick | George Monbiot www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... I have to agree with George here. The big NGOs have been ominously quiet about this Bill, compared with the excellent #WaronNature campaign against Liz Truss.

Just extraordinary to witness this nature-hating government sabotaging Labour’s own legacy. And for absolutely no reason: nature protection isn’t blocking development - it’s a necessary prerequisite for it (& for everything else, come to that…)

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver

The title of Richard Holmes’ book about the young Tennyson, The Boundless Deep, comes from Tennyson’s poem Crossing the Bar, a melodic masterpiece. Here’s a recording of me reading it #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #Tennyson #poetryismusic

Roof tiles moulded on the leg of a man named Martini and the kiln in which they were fired. #Abruzzo

We've got some busy event times this month, and this coming week. First, we'll be selling early copies of the paperback of @pollyrowena.bsky.social's #TheCompanyOfOwls at a talk on '‘Companions of nature: sickbed consolations & mimic hootings', Uni of Cumbria, Ambleside, Tue 7th Oct, 6.30pm.

The goddess Diana

The goddess Diana

Happy Transitus of St Francis of Assisi 🦋

Giving thanks for the life of Jane Goodall, whose roots and shoots movement filled her with hope. It’s also the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. Jane’s rallying cry was: “Together we CAN! Together we WILL!” Let’s carry the torch. 🔥

Presage of a coming storm

Wee Willy Winky

“Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals”. In one place! The Pied Piper of Hamlin comes immediately to mind. Followed by fish in a barrel. Or all your eggs in one basket. I wonder what Machiavelli or Sun Tzu or the goddess Athena would have to say about it?

Imagining a parallel world in which 22 billion was injected into the UK arts industry.

Extraordinary image!

Mesmerized by the tale of Alexander von Humboldt: a holistic thinker appalled by deforestation & extractive ag, who presaged the anthropocene, merged the poet & the naturalist & was a lifelong opponent of slavery. 🙏 @andreawulf.bsky.social!