Sad to see trees at Festival Gardens struggling due to heat stress and drought; and the liner in the largest pond has leaked for years, but now even the smaller ponds and the streams have dried up. 🤞 for some rain soon.

RIP Kevin Keegan 💔 #YNWA

Carrion crows (Corvus corone) are estimated to have the reasoning ability of a 7 year-old human. They understand quantities up to 30, have a concept of zero, understand probabilities, can identify geometric regularity. But it's using CROSS-WALKS that really impresses me. (📷: Russell's Rescue)

We have now compiled the best find submissions for January to June #PWC2026, so please do head over to the blog to check them out and to cast your vote! There are three Patchwork Challenge pin badges up for grabs! patchworkchallenge.blogspot.com/2026/07/best...

Went for a little walk along the Prom just now, thinking it would be cooler. Spoiler alert: it's not 🥵

Smoke from wildfires burning in the Peak District is visible on satellite images!

Fanned by a strong breeze all day, hats off to the firefighters dealing with a blaze that is several times the size of the adjacent communities. And to the local hospitality businesses who have taken in the evacuees. Sadly, climate change means this is the new normal.

Not a lovely sky tonight but an apocalyptic one full of smoke and ash, with wildfires raging across areas of Greater Manchester and North Wales. Thoughts are with everyone and everything affected.

An amazing sky to end a lovely evening around Speke & Garston Coastal Reserve with @birderjack.bsky.social 🌞

The petition for a televised emergency briefing on the climate & nature crisis how now passed 32,000. At 100,000, we secure a Parliamentary debate. Please sign and share. It only takes a moment. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76... #TimeToStepUp #NationalEmergencyBriefing

Colourful 🪶 gifts left by a couple of the #allotment peanut snafflers 🩵💚

Really pleased with my 🪶 find today - although obviously disappointed for the swift 🫤

Birdsong & the richness we’ve laid (are laying) waste to. An astonishing, heartbreaking demonstration of shifting baseline syndrome, & what I remember. Wrote about this @environment.theguardian.com + a real recording made in my village by a fierce & wonderful woman conservationist in 1975. 1/3

An #allotment bouquet (liberated from a very overgrown but once-loved plot that's being 'tamed' before it can be rented out again). A colourful reminder of two lovely people who have moved away 💐

Sat in the shade on the #allotment, then popped to a local church summer fair, where the highlights for me were the three peregrines watching over the festivities, then had a very quiet walk around Festival Gardens - probably because no one else was daft enough to be out at midday 🌞 🥵

Shopping for some fine yarn, 🧶 to make the best nest! 🪹🪶 📹: Josiane Plas 📍: Lowestoft, England

What is a parasite? Why are they so important for ecosystems and hosts? And what can we do to protect the 1000s of species at risk of extinction? A few weeks ago I spoke with a BBC Science Focus podcast about why parasites are awesome and you can listen HERE: open.spotify.com/episode/5864...

Estimated 250,000+ #Ladybirds on Grafham Water dam this evening (at least 150 per metre all the way along top of dam wall). Probably more. @birdguides.bsky.social @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social @rarebirder.bsky.social @bbcspringwatch.bsky.social #ukbirding

A very unusual nest! A pair of Wood Warblers Phylloscopus sibilatrix feeding young Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes. I presume the warblers' nest was predated and they found this similar looking nest nearby and began to feed the young even though the adult Wrens were too! Dartmoor, Devon this morning.

IT'S WEDNESDAY! It's #buyastrangerabook day! The grooviest day of all. I'll give out TWO books. FOR FREE. If you'd like one, let me know. Also, if you'd like to #BuyAStrangerABook too, let me know. It's a thing! Look. www.biggreenbookshop.com/stuff-you-mi... UK only

These Florida Burrowing Owls (Athene cunicularia floridana) are dancing along with Kool & the Gang, but they're also demonstrating "motion parallax." Because owls have fixed tubular eyes that can't rotate, the bobbing & head-swaying help them judge distance. (📷: Thomas Brittain via IG)

Me: I know! I'll do a mindfulness meditation on the #allotment for the #summersolstice. Parakeets: SCREEEECH! SCREEEECH! SCREEEECH! Robin: Her eyes are closed and she's not moving. I'd better fly over and land on her to make sure she's OK. Me: AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH! Who said nature is relaxing??

IT'S WEDNESDAY! It's #buyastrangerabook day! The grooviest day of all. I'll give out TWO books. FOR FREE. If you'd like one, let me know. Also, if you'd like to #BuyAStrangerABook too, let me know. It's a thing! Look. biggreenbookshop.com/stuff-you-mi... UK only

This juvenile GSW has been very vocal and active around the #allotment recently - probably complaining about having to fend for itself now! Juvenile song thrush having a good preen after a bath was a delight to see as well 😍

Despite repeated promises to ban them, the UK Government has authorised spraying butterfly-killing neonicotinoid pesticides across fields this summer, even though their use has been officially banned since 2018. Please consider signing thw below open letter

Thought maybe the #WorldCup had been moved to Liverpool, but apparently it's a navigation challenge called The Drop 🤷🏻‍♀️

Third bird rescue in as many days 🙄 The herring gull is soaked through and unable to fly, but no breaks as far as the vet could tell, yet they could only offer to PTS... Five hours later, I'd managed to contact and deliver the gull to a rehabber. Hoping for a good outcome 🪶

Today's #allotment rescue was a male blackbird trapped in next door's fruit cage - no obvious holes in the mesh and the door was bolted, so 🤷🏻‍♀️ Also spent some time discussing our orchard project for the 100th anniversary next year 🌳

Spent a lovely few hours on the #allotment. The yellow rattle and plantain have taken over the grass, and lesser trefoil has also arrived 💛 Lots of fledglings, including blue, great and LTTs, and a robin that needed to be escorted from the greenhouse 🙄

Down at the Grebe Factory interviewing the new apprentices for the Western Grebe Taxi Service, I'll thread in stills/video as I process them As a primer, here's THE BEST WESTERN GREBE MATING RITUAL FOOTAGE OF MY LIFE Warning on this thread: too cute for doom Skip to :41 for just rushing. 🪶 🐣

It was very nice to be asked by @theconversation.com to write about this fascinating new research. Pigeons in Bronze Age Cyprus! Big congrats to the authors. Excited to see what more we can learn about the early stages of the human-pigeon relationship… doi.org/10.64628/AB....

It's Open Farm Sunday at Kindling Farm on the 7th June - a great opportunity to learn more about the farm's agroforestry principles, the organic food it's growing and its plans for the future 💚 Bookings: kindling.org.uk/EventBooking #OpenFarmSunday

I posted quite a few blue jays during #ArtAdventCalendar, and several of you asked about Mary. Some of you who followed me on the old site already know the story, but for those who don't... here's a little 🧵 about Mary the blue jay (1/n) #birds

An amazing spectacle along Garston shore earlier, with hundreds of dunlin, ringed plover and sanderling moved by the incoming tide. House martins, swallows, shelducks, reed warblers, stonechats, RNPs & GSWs amongst other species seen 🪶 With @birderjack.bsky.social

(sound on for full effect) Chapman State Park near Clarendon, PA is home to Chapman Lake, which is home to a group of energetic North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) that like to host a midnight rave / leaf frolic. Not sure where they plug the speakers in.

NFY at Festival Gardens this morning: lapwing (on a gravelly, undeveloped part of the site, so not a strange sighting) and reed warbler (ignoring its name 🙄); 23 species in all, inc blackbird, blackcap, chiffchaff and song thrush all singing away 🪶

There are quite a few unclaimed #buyastrangerabook offers today. I have more to offer too. Look, it's not a "repost & follow for a chance to win" thing. Just ask for any of the books on offer, and I'll send you the book (if nobody else hasn't already asked). So check it out. UK only

It's the @biggreenbooks.bsky.social #Buyastrangerabook day, the best day of the week! Join in and you could receive (or offer) a gorgeous book like this one 😻

Spent a lovely 40 minutes watching harbour porpoise off Festival Gardens this morning 🩶 At times, a Cetti's burst into song from the bushes behind me and swallows zipped above the water. (There are 2 porpoise doing some synchronised swimming in the not great video - middle left and bottom right.)

Hobbies hunting over Whixall Moss #ShropshireBirding

Magical moment - watching a pair of #Yellowhammers land on the road and start a courtship dance! Never seen that before. #birdingWales @birdsinwales.bsky.social

Hey. @gracequantock.bsky.social & I did a Crowdfunder to get as many copies of Grace's book "Living Well with Chronic Illness" as we could in to hospitals and libraries. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/86e1e73e29... It was great & we sent out loads! But we've kept a few back. It's a two part post!

Called in at Harrock Wood to see/hear the rooks (as noisy & charming as ever) & was also serenaded by willow warbler, blackcap, chiffchaff & - surprisingly - grasshopper warbler (in scrub by the wood). Other highlights: swallows hunting low over the fields, house sparrows, goldcrest. #UKbirding 🪶

Festival Gardens looked lovely this morning, even under an ominous grey sky. Birding highlights there and in the Southern Grasslands: lesser whitethroat, whitethroat, Cetti’s, blackcap, chiffchaff, song thrush and blackbird all singing away, and swallows and a sparrowhawk overhead 🪶

This beautiful bird is a stock dove - an amber listed species of conservation concern in the UK. The Government is currently consulting on shooting seasons for wild birds. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation is lobbying to add stock dove and many other species to the quarry list.

For the #BirdoftheDay alternative theme: spot the robin chicks waiting for a #mouthful of food 😍

Calling #WildlifeRescue centres across Europe! Do you have data on #swifts? We’re studying how heatwaves affect rescued chicks, and we’d love to collaborate. Quick survey, no data sharing yet. Info: giuliamasoero.github.io/project/resc... #Ornithology #ClimateChange @alecorr-castro.bsky.social

Happy #MayDay #Beltane #InternationalWorkersDay to all who celebrate 🌸 At Festival Gardens, the theme of the day was birds in strange places: 2 moorhen roosting 15ft up a tree, 2 shelduck on wasteland, & a grey heron wondering where all the water went (there's a leak in the liner, apparently) 🪶

Strolled around the Hale circuit this morning. NFTY: yellow wags & swifts. Other highlights: reed, sedge & Cetti’s warblers, wheatear, grey partridge. Then rushed around Priory Wood, Festival Gardens & Southern Grasslands on a wild cuckoo chase (like a wild goose chase only worse 🙄) 🪶