Like last year, we are presented with a stark set of choices: survive, grow, or die.

After voting ngutu-pare wrybill in #BOTY2025 this week, I was delighted to pick up a copy of Bird of the Year today! @ellenrykers.com

How to use regenerative agriculture in your own garden

You start flying,” says Aqua Reekie. “There’s the sound of the ice popping beneath you, and beyond that, silence.” Alexandra’s obsession with wild ice skating, documented by Becki Moss and @ellenrykers.com

Two years in the soil: Lessons from real-life regenerative agriculture trials

Every winter, thrill-seeking skaters chase ice that naturally forms on dams & lakes around the South Island. Photographer Becki Moss & I documented this adventurous subculture – at risk of fading away as the climate warms... @nzgeo.bsky.social www.nzgeo.com/stories/chas...

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending August 30

New books day! Fill yer boots (or your holds list) with new fiction, new non-fiction and just ordered titles. #pukapuka #pukapukahou my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/new-titles/ ^MT

My love for Tīeke is now historical fact thanks to @ellenrykers.com. Go buy this book: www.penguin.com.au/books/bird-o...

Really grateful to Dr. Claire Concannon for covering our research on Voices of the Sea Ice 🧪🌍🦑🦉🦊 www.rnz.co.nz/news/ourchan...

the birds are enjoying this fruiting tōtara in the garden #birds 🪶

Some incredible photography from New Zealand photojournalist Robin Hammond in this story. I wish National Geographic had spelled the Māori words correctly, though. www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

feeling deeply today for all the gorgeous goofy greyhounds ❤️ and missing my boy terribly 😭

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i've been writing for @nzgeo.bsky.social for about 6 years now. imo it's a keystone species in the aotearoa media ecosystem. a home for uniquely nz longform tales, science yarns, stunning photojournalism. if you value this, please consider subscribing: www.nzgeo.com/stories/we-n...

Juliet Gerrard: Funding the whole pie

The future of The Spinoff: The Spinoff’s CEO, founder and editor level with you in an open letter published this morning.

dinosaurs 🪶 tūī / kākā / tuatara at 📍zealandia

Sadly my climate/enviro newsletter Future Proof is a casualty of this situation. Last edition will be next week. Please consider supporting if you're a Spinoff reader thespinoff.co.nz/media/28-11-...

Made a start on a New Zealand science and nature journalists starter pack: go.bsky.app/Ao7CazM - please let me know who else should be on there and I’ll add them/you!

This is your annual reminder about how bad the cruise industry is for everything. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has improved in the two years since I wrote this article. theconversation.com/cruise-ships...

Tūī are nectar feeders and have a brush-tipped tongue to slurp it up more easily.

“One mile on a bike is a $.42 economic gain to society, one mile driving is a $.20 loss.” “Which means that Copenhagen, a city of 1.2 million people, saves $357 million a year on health costs because something like 80% of its population commutes by bike, even in winter.” grist.org/biking/one-m...

kia ora bluesky, i'm a writer & science communicator from Aotearoa. 📝 i write stories for @nzgeo.bsky.social 🎧 i help produce the Our Changing World podcast on RNZ 🦜 i have co-led Bird of the Year since 2022 lovely to be here 👋 here are some bird pics

Lovely episode from @veronikameduna.bsky.social this week, reporting from the first Tairāwhiti Ngutukākā Festival 🌹 Ngutukākā is common in gardens but rarer than kākāpō in the wild. Community rewilding efforts are turning SH35 into a Crimson Highway www.rnz.co.nz/news/ourchan... #kikorangi #nz

just some punk penguin album covers 🤘🐧 (I had occasion to revisit my tawaki piki toka / eastern rockhopper pics when we covered them on Critter of the Week recently, excellent #birds) 🪶

bring on BOTYxBSKY (it's the 20th bday of Bird of the Year in 2025, so it'll be a biggie) 🪶

Inside the Pūngāwerewere Workroom at Plant & Food Research... A team of scientists is designing a targeted trap that lures in males with 🕸️spiderweb silk perfume🕸️ Listen to hear about caring for 800 captive spiders & testing pheromone concoctions in the spider arena www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/ourc...

this kererū and its mate are collecting twigs to construct a nest in the tall tree outside my front door 🥰 they keep making soft little coos to each other 🥺 #birds

Excellent piece by @ellenrykers.bsky.social about Aotearoa's efforts to curb agricultural methane emissions www.bbc.com/future/artic...

I had fun talking to @rebekahwhite.bsky.social for this @nzgeo.bsky.social piece. Such an important message about the help we need from private collectors, the public, & tangata whenua to be our fossil forecasters so we can save our biological heritage before it is lost www.nzgeo.com/stories/pala...

New Zealand's race to reduce cow burps www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Some good news for a change #nzpol thespinoff.co.nz/science/15-1...

A new study reveals that New Zealand’s huge ocean territory contains two billion tons of carbon, locked in the seafloor—but trawling releases it. New Zealand also happens to be the only nation still trawling on the high seas of the South Pacific.

Bitterns are so hard to find that this story took us longer to make than every other story we've published (except one). It took a few years, but finally, @ellenrykers.bsky.social and Craig McKenzie tracked the birds down. And yes, they always look this weird.

"Commercial areas, construction zones, school fields. It's just because there's so much pressure on their habitat that they're having to move into other areas that aren't necessarily better than their usual ones." www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zea...

The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now. www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/o...

Anton Thomas began his artistic expedition in Alaska, sketching a grizzly bear with a mouthful of salmon in coloured pencil. 3 years later, Wild World was finished: 1,642 animal species depicted across land & seascapes in an intricate world map. thespinoff.co.nz/science/12-1...

ah yes the garden gherkins 📷: Joel Knight CC BY-NC 4.0 inaturalist.nz/observations... / Steven Wallace CC BY-NC 4.0 inaturalist.nz/observations...

Ahh, great, #BirdOfTheCentury gonna need more time to count special votes from overseas. Two more days that Aotearoa will be without a bird government. Madness!

We've had to delay the Bird of the Century winner announcement to Wednesday so we can deal with the literally hundreds of thousands of votes that flooded in this week. We have implemented a new email system and will soon be sending out verification emails to those who missed out earlier this week.

So impressed with the pūteketeke pandemonium. It has been A Week for team bird of the century but it is all worth it for the BIRDS #BIRDS youtu.be/uVE1hBzHn3s?...

Not content with just his own HBO show, John Olliver went on The Tonight Show to promote the Pūteketeke. Wearing a bespoke costume he didn't even use on his own show! youtu.be/uVE1hBzHn3s

The grief bird: The bittern’s eerie, booming call sounds like a lament, a tangi ringing across the marshes. Now more than ever, the bittern’s story is one of sorrow. This wetland bird that once flocked in groups 100 strong is nearing extinction. www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-... 📷: Craig McKenzie

Well well well looks like the leopard seal is a known individual, first seen in Wellington in September. Glad you stopped by Sumner, Kōanga, and safe travels! 🧪🌎🦑 i.stuff.co.nz/national/133...

Climate change is finally solved! Or is it? A cartoon www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Climate quitters. People leaving corporate jobs because of ethic mismatch.👏👏👏

sry Aotearoa there's one more important election you need to vote in - polls open at 9am on Monday at www.birdoftheyear.org.nz ✅