OK that's me out! Here's a nice song about dinosaurs and the deep time of natural history. Bye bye www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T-Q...

The lads at @neheritagelib.bsky.social do excellent work and I'm very chuffed to be representing @nenature.bsky.social in this year's NE History Compendium

I'm finishing my contract at @nenature.bsky.social this week, so this account will be going the way of all digital flesh on Thursday - I'll still be on Bluesky at @pdkmitchell.bsky.social though (and also on the Other Website, although that's currently full of nazis so I wouldn't recommend it)

Gutted that I missed both Space Penguins and Great Auks - two of my principal interests - last night. NHSN's Monday night talks program is great though, and also free and open to all: www.nhsn.org.uk/wp-content/u...

One for the Real Moss Heads here. You know who you are

Absolutely bonkers that the Hancock used to have its own Andean condor. All available accounts suggest that it was extremely annoyed at being kidnapped from Chile and shipped to Newcastle and put in a cage, and spent the rest of its life trying to bite people's fingers off. As you would, to be fair

Heads up: this is no longer happening, pals, I'm afraid. So if you wish to hear my trenchant views on books, birds, the north, fascists, espresso and/or anything else, you will simply have to befriend me in real life.

Correct your maps: Newcastle is Mitteleuropa LORT BURN SPECIALS: 3 happened and it was great keep yr eyes peeled for LORT BURN SPECIALS: 4

UNWHOLESOME TREASURE

Watching @rach-anderson.bsky.social being a legend as we launch our new Archives and Historical Research course at @nenature.bsky.social

I'm going to miss working at @nenature.bsky.social

This month in Newcastle I'm going to be in conversation with two of my favourite writers! First with Owen Hatherley, discussing his new book, a history of how British culture was transformed by the exodus of artists and intellectuals from Central Europe in the 20th century: bsky.app/profile/lort...

In my other life I do this and it's excellent and you should come

GET YR ORDERS IN

Have you ever wanted to do historical research, but not been sure how to go about it? Join our heritage researchers @rach-anderson.bsky.social and @petermitchellnhsn.bsky.social in Oct for a specially curated course on finding your way through the archival maze: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-introdu...

How has paperwork served as a tool of empowerment for people who often find power elusive? In our latest podcast, a group of historians, archivists, and activists met at the Raphael Samuel History Centre (@rshc.bsky.social) to discuss the hidden history of paperwork 🗃️🎙️

Newcastle is antifascist

Really chuffed with this new article on our blog, from Ian Bower, about Geordie legend and champion animal-drawer Thomas Bewick: www.nhsn.org.uk/thomas-bewic...

This is cool:

This guy called Robert used to ring my grandads house to try to talk to him. We all thought he was just an annoying guy, and would tell him to go away Robert and hang up on him. Lots of people made annoying calls to grandad, so we just continued, till grandad said, it's that bloody actor again.

This, by @petermitchellnhsn.bsky.social, is very good if very upsetting tribunemag.co.uk/2025/09/tyne...

As part of our #NaturesCure project, we've been inviting clients of the Angelou Centre in Newcastle to Gosforth Nature Reserve for guided walks and to talk about what nature means to them. Our heritage researcher Mel picks up the story: www.nhsn.org.uk/peace-friend...

This is going to be good and if you're in the NE you should come to it

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature” (1836)

It’s day 3 of the pre-order window, which means there’s 4 days left to grab a copy at a discounted early bird price 🐥 A big fat thank you to everyone who’s already grabbed their copy. It means you’ll get yours first an all! www.northeastheritagelibrary.co.uk/category/nor...

Really chuffed to be in this, with an essay about @nenature.bsky.social in the 19th and early 20th century, field naturalism, imperial science, museums, civic identity and lads with big muttonchop whiskers and giant watch chains dissecting sea slugs

Do you want to see @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social read from one of his excellent bird books? Do you want to hear about how all your favourite old-time nature writers were weirdos and nazis? Do you want to see him to do the smouldery face from his headshot? Then come to @nenature.bsky.social next month

This is going to be good and if you're in the NE you should come to it

My boy! I thought he was going to die again! He didn't again! Now he's back and no longer ill and getting in the way of me working and he smells *terrible*

Very proud this week to be publishing this terrific essay by @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social on the long and complex history of far right involvement in the British countryside in this week's @the-breakdown.bsky.social newsletter

Bonus running content, apologies: I wrote this for @actionfdn.bsky.social about my terrible friend Pete and my Forrest Gump running strategy.

apparently my book comes out in September, wow, preorder it for all your library and intellectual history needs, stay for the section on Paradise Lost and John Ray's herbals, or the story of George Psalmanazar, my favourite early modern scammer www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

Important glubby news

Read this very nice thing by my mate Richard about why he's doing the Great North Run for @actionfdn.bsky.social, and then give him some money. Better still, give *me* some money actionfoundation.org.uk/running-comm...

We at NHSN are very sad to note the passing of Angus Lunn MBE. We've tried to pay tribute here to his incredible life and career as an educator, naturalist and conservationist, and to everything he did for nature in the North East: www.nhsn.org.uk/remembering-...

I’m actually super proud of this little project. The transactions are such a fab resource not just for natural history but for the social and cultural history of the north east! Do have a browse! ✨

Found this video of me introducing the archives of the NHSN on our YouTube channel - if you can ignore my face and delivery, it's a decent introduction to some of what's cool in our collections: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnon...

This is such a brilliant piece of writing about Teesside, deindustrialising landscapes and ecologies, birds, shorelines, oilrigs, that sort of thing

My friend Ed is doing the Great North Run for Medical Aid for Palestinians: please give generously to alleviate the unimaginable suffering in Gaza and inflict some on Ed, who actually deserves it ajbellgreatnorth5k2025.enthuse.com/pf/edward-an...

In Nazi Germany, the museums knuckled under early. In 1933, at a conference in Mainz, museum professionals agreed that their duty was to "co-operate in the great task and with all their powers contribute to the shaping of an amorphous mass of population into a nation."

When I'm not doing heritage stuff for a job I sometimes write about the politics and cultures of memory - here's my most recent, on the uses of WW2: tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/afte...

This year - for the sixth time - I'm doing the Great North Run for @actionfdn.bsky.social, a North East charity who persist in treating refugees and asylum seekers like people instead of problems. Please give generously, if you've cash to spare! ajbellgreatnorthrun2025.enthuse.com/pf/peter-mit...

Recently, the first sighting of the Silver-washed Fritillary was recorded at Havannah Nature Reserve by local Chris Barlow.📷 This butterfly has not been recorded in Northumberland since 1850! 🦋 They are now found in a few sites in County Durham with Rowland's Gill the most northerly location.

Master of the Arundel Sketchbook, Flemish A Perch (Perca Fluviatilis) 17th century (Harvard University)

Odd request: I'm looking for someone with knowledge of carboniferous paleontology (and maybe its histories) who can help me identify some species from 19thc names, many of which which are now obsolete. Any takers?

Hugh Miller fans 4EVA

From the @nenature.bsky.social collections: geological maps of Northumberland, 1923

Can’t remember if I shared this already, but I recently did a live episode of @cursedobjectsuk.bsky.social with @luketurner.bsky.social, fab curator Kate Clements and of course @kasiatee.bsky.social and @danhancox.bsky.social. You can listen here:

From the @nenature.bsky.social collections: Richard Howse's Catalogue of the Fossils of the Permian System of Northumberland and Durham, previously belonging to the Darlington & Teesdale Naturalists' Field Club, and annotated (with drawings) by an unknown enthusiast

In the office today. We used to be a country