* CURRENTLY RECRUITING * Do you have experience of hearing loss? Do you regularly listen to music? If you can answer yes to both questions, then we would like to hear from you. This study is concerned with understanding the link between everyday music listening, mental health & wellbeing. 1/4

A beautiful sunrise over #Liverpool Marina today 🧡

Right, well I've just submitted the opening chapters of my #YA #novel to the @newwritingnorth.bsky.social 2026 awards, so🤞 (And if I never mention this again, you can draw your own conclusions!)

There's still time to enter this year's Prize! The deadline for entries is at midnight on Saturday 31 January Good luck with your submission 🍃 #NatureChroniclesPrize #NatureWriting #NaturePrize #Booksky 📚💙 naturechroniclesprize.com

A dispatch from our Liverpool field site by Daniella Shaw www.linkedin.com/posts/dr-dan...

The #allotment was graced with two robins today. It was difficult to tell if they were fighting or courting 🙄 but they both stopped for a snack: suet for one and a futile battle with a worm for the other. (One of the blackbirds dealt with the worm shortly afterwards.)

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.

Put community repair shops on every high street. Our work shows people love it, increases community interaction & helps people keep essential goods going for longer giving them more money to spend on food & utility bills It reduces waste and so reduces local authority costs. It is a win, win, win.

@marburybirds.bsky.social 🖤🖤

Leafing through In the Footsteps of Eric Hardy to find passages for a shared reading session with the Growing Sudley Stroke and Brain Injury Group. Tthe numbers and variety of birds lost from the local area are truly shocking - like the hundreds of brambling in Allerton 45 years ago... #UKbirding

A reminder that I offer #academic #proofreading and #creative #writing #critiques 📙 See my website www.wordsanddeeds.co.uk for details 🖋️

Grackle & Pop

Slow going on the #allotment #BigGardenBirdWatch this morning: 2 blackbird, 2 blue tit, 3 crow, 1 dunnock, 1 magpie, 1 robin, 1 woodpigeon, 1 wren. Heard RNPs but they didn't visit.

This advice, nay instruction, has never been more important than today. You are not bearing witness by watching the news. You are unreadying yourself, exhausting yourself. Get outside. Turn it all off. Recharge

Fun Fact: Today is the Welsh Valentine's Day: St Dwynwen's Day. She was a 5th-century saint who lived on Ynys Llanddwyn, off Ynys Môn. Her island is a key location in my dystopian #YA #NewAdult work in progress.

Cold, overcast & windy conditions in the Growing Sudley Therapeutic Garden this morning, but 14 species (27 birds) were present for the @rspb.bsky.social #BigGardenBirdWatch 🪶 Star of the show: a lovely female blackcap 🤎

Grackle still in same field at Speke hall this morning 👌

Grackle species at Speke Hall meadows, Liverpool, 9.45am today. Thanks to yesterday's finder, @birderjack.bsky.social #UKbirding @birdguides.bsky.social

I have a lovely #buyastrangerabook day offer from @dustystacks.bsky.social Jan is offering to buy someone a copy of Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. If this is something you'd like, get in touch. UK only

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.

During the @rspb.bsky.social #BigGardenBirdWatch I'll be doing a count in the Growing Sudley Therapeutic Garden in Mossley Hill, Liverpool. We'd love to see other local results to find out if there are more species we could welcome into the garden - find us on Facebook 🪶

A fuzzy video of (some of) the flock of 10 long-tailed tits and the nuthatch that visited the #allotment peanut feeder this morning. Lovely to see and hear these sweet little birds 🩷

Lots of bird activity at the #allotment this morning, including the friendly robin again, a flock of 10 long-tailed tits, a nuthatch, and a skein of pinkies heading towards the Mersey. #UKbirding

More photos of the session with the Growing Sudley Stroke and Brain Injury Group on Wednesday. The birds found the pine cone ones straight away, and we're hopeful of a good count during the @rspb.bsky.social #BigGardenBirdWatch in a week's time 🪶

First contact, and it was initiated by the #allotment robin - I was still putting my boots on!

Growing Sudley is holding an open afternoon this Saturday for therapists and the public to have a look around the amazing repurposed changing rooms. #therapy #wellness #Liverpool

Made sunflower-seed studded apples and pine cone bird feeders with the Growing Sudley Stroke and Brain Injury Group today, and had a chat about garden birds in general 💚

Want to know more? Feb 4, 20:30 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-introdu...

Many Norfolk farm #ponds have steep sides especially at the old clay/marl pit digging face. Sometimes, if cleared of scrub, a stunning vertical meadow is formed along the sharp moisture gradient from waters edge to bank top. Here Sayer's Black Pit, the first pond we restored in 2011, shows the way

You can judge a person by the size of their moral circle. Trump, for instance, has the smallest possible moral circle, containing only him. Be the opposite: expand your circle. Include, for example, animals currently raised for food. We shut them out of our consciences. It's time to bring them in.

Over on my blog, I've started a monthly chronicle of my encounters with Britain's #commonland. In January we find out what common land is, bust some myths, speak of #JohnClare and hear about the lands I have lost. helenbaczkowska.com And open.substack.com/pub/commonpl...

Putting this in context: About 75% of Europe's Whimbrel breed in Iceland. Over 50% of Europe's Dunlin. About 50% of Europe's Golden Plover. About 20% of Europe's Redshank. SCARY! #ornithology

Barn Owls originally evolved in a warmer, drier climate than we have in the UK, so the winters here are particularly challenging. Three big factors affecting winter survival are weather, prey abundance & coping strategies. ❄️🐁 Find out more & how you can help: www.barnowltrust.org.uk/barn-owl-fac...

Lucky #allotment blackbird: a few minutes after he'd eaten, there was a scuffle, an alarmed 'plinking' & a frustrated 'kee-kee' from the bottom of the plot & a sparrowhawk flew off, preyless. Also: redwings, robins, RNPs, goldfinches, blue & great tits, wren, crow pair, song thrush. #UKbirding

Only a light sprinkling of snow on the #allotment this lunchtime, but more on the way by the looks of the sky, and the hailstone showers weren't pleasant 🙄 Still, can't let the birdies go hungry!

For millions of overtired parents, especially of small babies and/or neurodivergent ones, every fireworks night is a night of unnecessary, completely preventable, stress and psychological violence. Ban the sale of fireworks to the public, now. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

Enjoyed a day out with @birderjack.bsky.social today at Ditton Brook and Within Way. Highlights: yellowhammers, common sandpiper, redwing and fieldfare flocks, grey wag, stonechat, ravens, sparrowhawk, kestrel, buzzards, wigeon, lapwings, and bird of the day: marsh harrier. #UKbirding

IT'S TUESDAY (not Wednesday)! But it's #buyastrangerabook day! The grooviest of all the days. 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.

My 14 year old son Luca took me here after cricket training today. He said there is hope in that sky Mum, I’ve never seen anything like it, the locals said there are half a million starlings here. Keep your families close, hug your children, help those who need us, do a 1000 piece puzzle, enjoy!

Spent some time on the #allotment for the winter #solstice. Saw/heard around 17 bird species including mistle thrush, wren, nuthatch and GSW, and a 🦊 #UKbirding

IT'S WEDNESDAY! It's #buyastrangerabook day. The grooviest of all the days. 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.

Hoped this morning might offer a good chance of seeing a firecrest after two days of rain, and so it proved 😀 A lovely #lifer for me. Thanks to @birderjack.bsky.social for the photos.

It’s a sad indictment of Britain’s ignorance of nature that Sycamore Gap petitions - for a tree that mattered to humans but not nature - received tens of thousands of signatures but a petition to protect entire peatland habitats is stuck at 1,500 actnow.peatfreepartnership.org.uk/end-peat-sal...

A lovely sunset at low tide on the Mersey Estuary, after a very rainy day.

Talked about the human history of the Christmas wreath and its contents' importance for wildlife with the Growing Sudley Stroke and Brain Injury Group today, while everyone made wreaths from native and non-native species.

Celebrate Christmas early and in the lovely natural setting of the Growing Sudley walled garden: growingsudley.com/all-events/w... ❄️

First time back at Ditton Brook today since my accident there in May. Saw a peregrine 😁 Other highlights: a yellowhammer, a mixed flock of fieldfare and redwing, and a large flock of linnet feeding on the dried sunflower heads. *peregrine 📷 by @birderjack.bsky.social

BLACK FRIDAY SALE! 🏷️ GOLD OTTER ADOPTION £5! 🦦 FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY ONLY! ❗ SHOP NOW - ukwildottertrust.org/product/otte... 🦦

The new #allotment robin is getting bolder - maybe one day it will come to my hand like the other one did ❤️

Stayed fairly local given the bitterly cold conditions today: #allotment and Growing Sudley walled garden. Birding highlight: a peregrine keeping watch at the church.