Almost every time I try to type pollinator, I accidentally type polkanator, which sounds like the most Bohemian superhero of all time

The red dot is a baby North Atlantic right whale trying to migrate up the east coast of the United states. The blue streaks are fast moving shipping vessels entering and leaving New York City harbor. One collision and the whale is dead. We need *mandatory* speed limits for these vessels! 🧪🦑🌍

You don't see too many maps like this one ... well, ever! 💙 This map of Scituate, Rhode Island is unique not only for its striking blue(print) color, but also for the fun anecdotes left by the mapmaker, Captain George E. Matteson. Map: buff.ly/bKVkk4N #bpl #LMEC #maps #bostonmaps #localhistory

me when I can't say no to another piece of cheese

Dr. Charles Knowles explores the ancient history and science of the world’s oldest and most popular drug: alcohol.

Good goose #birds

It took me years to place this feature about mysterious cattle deaths in the west and the conspiracies that sprung up to explain it. So glad it found a home in Orion’s latest issue. I hope you’ll give it a read. orionmagazine.org/article/ghos... @longreads.com

all this is both foolish and unnecessary

Skeeter! ❤️ From my collection, 1943.

I present the #cat semi colon (Cc @bcdreyer.social)

Want to start 2026 by learning more about history and how historical research gets done? Subscribe to my newsletter LIBRARY OF WONDERS. I've got some DOOZY interviews coming in January...and more throughout the year! libraryofwonders.substack.com/subscribe

Birds, bugs, fish, whatever. Let’s see some #NewYearsEveIridescence!

So for a special quarter-century @satevepost.bsky.social Considering History column, I offer American Studies contexts for 10 of the most significant political, social, & cultural events & trends of the last 25 years! @hcrichardson.bsky.social 🗃️ www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/12/cons...

Want to start 2026 by learning more about history and how historical research gets done? Subscribe to my newsletter LIBRARY OF WONDERS. I've got some DOOZY interviews coming in January...and more throughout the year! libraryofwonders.substack.com/subscribe

A robin in late December #birds

For today’s #birdoftheday theme “side profiles” here’s a pretty lady in the yard

As we prepare to close out 2025, I am excited to share my favorite reads of the year! I was fortunate to enjoy some fantastic work this year - be sure to tune in this week as I share a bit more about each book, but in the mean time: what were your favorite books this year?

Gentle reminder that my book ICE: FROM MIXED DRINKS TO SKATING RINKS —A COOL HISTORY OF A HOT COMMODITY makes a great gift for friends and family 💚

Happy Public Domain Day 2026 (Jan. 1) from Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. To read more about the public domain www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9f... More information here: web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd... #books #literature #publicDomainDayCountdown

Just been laughed at by an entire vet’s waiting room when the receptionist loudly welcomed me and ‘ASTEROID DESTROYER!’ to the building. Look guys. She’s even in her space suit. They will be laughing on the other side of their labradors when she RULES THE WORLD!!!! ✊😾 👩‍🚀 ☄️🐈‍⬛

Showin off them pantaloons. Photo from my collection, no written date/info.

A history of punctuation How we came to represent (through inky marks) the vagaries of the mind, inflections of the voice, and intensity of feeling by Florence Hazrat aeon.co/essays/besid... #language #linguistics

Love this lil red visitor to the yard! #birds

Wanna start your day with good news? I knew that @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social was bringing Nancy Lemann’s wonderfully eccentric novel Lives of the Saints back into print this spring. I didn’t know they’re also publishing a new Lemann book, The Oyster Diaries! Oh, man, that’s exciting.

watching this in public was a huge mistake, oh my god. the fact he's still eating like he isn't being violently thrown around is killing me.

Jenny Nyström - the woman who created the image for a Swedish Christmas by Beth Daley www.europeana.eu/en/stories/j... About Jenny Nyström: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_N... Christmas card at PG: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subje... #books #illustration

Fairy puff! Postcard from my collection, mailed 1912.

Go look at the moon!!!

An image from @amybrady.bsky.social's book Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks–a Cool History of a Hot Commodity www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700456...

Should I be writing? Yes. But am I looking through seed catalogs instead? Also yes. Sigh.

Each week on my patreon, I write about maps and about the process of drawing maps for books. I'm hoping to get membership up over 500 subscribers, and we're close! It's free, so if you're curious, go read some articles. If you like it, please consider subscribing! patreon.com/SurprisedEel

Part 100! of 200 in historically interesting things to inspire your ttrpg This 14th century door at Exeter Cathedral, UK, is thought to be the oldest existing cat flap.

So, this study shows that Europe pretty much sucked for tens of thousands of years, and then domestic cats showed up 2000 years ago from North Africa

Thanksgiving is upon us! So...how best to show your distain to your terrible relatives? How about eel pie? In his 15th C. cookbook, Bartolomeo Platina includes a recipe for eel pie w/ instructions to feed it to your foes when it's done, because eel pie has no redeeming features. 🗃️🧪

As the year comes to an end, I'm reposting some of the comics I made this year, including this ridiculous thing.

Don't know if you'd be interested in a bit of work on Saturday 1st July, they're booking people to roam around in wild animal costumes uptown.

Hey there’s a bird here and I don’t know what it is, can you come look at it? Me:

Spotted a rare white deer, walking with @sallyfisherprice.bsky.social today...

Ok, this is cool. In America, in Nebraska, we lived next to an airbase. British Vulcans were based there; Vulcans are the coolest of planes - an art nouveau Star Wars of a shape and Neil Young feedback of a roar. I recall them flying over, and here one is, all faded like a photocopy of a photocopy

Sure, monks loved their eels. But so did the nuns! In 1235 Henry III granted a charter to the nuns of Godstow Abbey that included the rights to local eel-rents. Or, rather, some rights. Turns out, the nuns couldn't get eels all year round...just in the autumn. 1/2 🗃️🧪

“The Family Pet” Postcard from my collection, mailed 1910.

Evergreen

Last of the lady coral asters, with squirrel-munched pumpkin 🌱

If I weren't a writer I would've been an archivist. I learned so much in this interview w/Malika Desire, reference archivist at the NYPL. We discussed her work, her favorite question ever received, and the witchy display case she curated for the NYPL! libraryofwonders.substack.com/p/interview-...

If I weren't a writer I would've been an archivist. I learned so much in this interview w/Malika Desire, reference archivist at the NYPL. We discussed her work, her favorite question ever received, and the witchy display case she curated for the NYPL! libraryofwonders.substack.com/p/interview-...

New from @carriej.bsky.social: Folks, we’ve got a white loon. 🪶https://www.audubon.org/magazine/once-lifetime-photos-capture-rare-white-loons-first-summer

You want to know how important eels were in early medieval Britain. I hear you. Bede says they were very important. And grave goods from a 7th C. burial site in Cambridge include a copper bowl w/ the skeletal remains of three complete eels. Who says you can't take it with you? 🗃️🧪

Morning!

going into the week like