The sun reaches me in fragments peering between birch-boughs to find the rest of me. Wild marjoram hums with insect-thrum, each mound alive with shimmer and stir. Above, swallows cleave the air. They reap the sky, gathering the fleeting harvest of summer; joy itself made feather and flight. #summer

High Leys - Hay meadows: fields that have fed centuries, stitched with wildflowers, their roots remembering what we’ve forgotten. Not just pasture, but archive. Not just grass, but living history sung in pollen and bees. Since the 1930s, Britain has lost 97% of its hay meadows. #RewildBritain

A portent of doom, bearer of wisdom or adorable fluffball? This beautiful young tawny spent a few minutes with me yesterday morning. #ukwildlife #tawnyowl #owl #athena #minerva #blodeuwedd

And then there were two. #hedgehog #wildlifeuk #trailcam #asmr

Birds being birds. No filters, just feathers - daily snapshots from my trailcam. #fasterthanaspeedingbullfinch #birds #gardenbirds

Close up of a collagraph plate used for hand printing. It’s incredible that this is made from cardboard, wood glue, shellac and a bit of insulation tape. After several inkings, the plate takes on a wood-like patina. The plates become art in their own right. #collagraph #handprinted #art #curlew #ink

Totting up my bird records for this year and we’re up to 58 species around the house so far. A favourite of which is the curlew which is paid homage to in a collagraph print I made recently. #handprinted #collagraph #curlew #birds #twitcher

A much needed bit of magic arrived this weekend. Wild Folk is a collection of fables created by Jackie Morris and Tamsin Abbott. Visually stunning whilst also conjuring up beauty in the mind’s eye. @tamsintheshed.bsky.social #wildfolk #magic #spell #boundlesspublishing #fable #sevenfablesdulverton

In Cumbria, my visitor is known as an urchin. Prior to the enclosures act, they were called this more widely due to their resemblance to sea urchins. Urchins not being a common part of the UK diet, it is more likely that it stems from an older PIE root for ‘bristle’. #hedgehog #urchin #etymology

Listen to bats (soprano pipistrelles) in real time thanks to the echo meter I was using at the same time I filmed them. Make sure your sound is on.

Mystery ‘Easter’ cross-creator update. Turns out it is field mice who created the Easter homage. It is a behaviour known as caching. Usually they take food and hide it for later. I can only assume as there is too much food to take and hide that they are instead bringing things to hide it for later.

The sweetest game of chase you ever did see. I swear half way through the clip, when one mouse takes a snack break, the other taps it on the tail to get it to come back and play. 😍

Mary had a little lamb (or two) who showed up late on Friday night wanting baa & baa... except I’m not Mary! (Part 1)

An Easter Monday mystery. An Easter ‘gift’ was waiting for me in the greenhouse this morning - a bowl I put seed in for the mice and voles had been fashioned into a little nest of moss and feathers complete with a wooden cross on top!!! I’ve left my trail cam on tonight to see what happens next.

Bubble bubble, boil and… stir that cauldron to conjure up stunning shades using natural dyes and fabrics. There was ‘no eye of newt’ (mustard seed) or ‘toe of frog’ (buttercup) but there was plenty of: weld, buckthorn, cochineal, indigo and brazil wood. #colour #naturaldye #environment #shakespeare

Summer’s bones; stripped by autumn and picked clean by winter. They wait. Wait for life to return. #spring #imbolc #brigid #pathway

Driven down the valley by the advancing snow clouds, flocks of redwing, fieldfare and starlings descended on the last of the visible grass to feed this afternoon. #redwing #fieldfare #starling #cumbria

I am fortunate to live in an area with very dark skies which revealed tonight a relatively rare atmospheric phenomenon. It’s known as a SAR- sub auroral red arc. #SAR #darkskies #Cumbria

There’s a spectacular aurora tonight… under those clouds. Hope the sky is clear for some of you. #aurora #northernlights #cumbria #newyearsday25

The TDIR readalong is reaching its peak. Chapter 10 sees Will discover the last of the signs. An unnamed king emerges from the earth on a funereal longship guarding it alongside the rest of his treasure. #tdir #thedarkisrising #fantasy

Fifty-one years since its publication, Susan Cooper’s work continues to enchant those whose spell its words were cast upon both as children and adults. #thedarkisrising #tdir #fantasy #chikdrensliterature #kidslit

#StStephensDay: Today’s walk was accompanied by a wren raucously chattering from the hedgerow. Frazer wrote of a symbolical rite where the 26th saw the parading of a hedge king caught the day prior. A form of sympathetic magic, it represented the shifting liminal period between winter/spring.

Christmas Eve - The tree of knowledge - ‘Wood is the sign of learning.’ The Dark is Rising #tdir #thedarkisrising

Old Way Lane - The power of words. Ch4 The Dark is Rising #tdir #thedarkisrising

The Walker. A shadow archetype - he exists within the tension between light and dark. #tdir #thedarkisrising #archetypes #shadow

The dark days are almost at our back and the light beckons. ‘When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back; Three from the circle, three from the track; Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone; Five will return, and one go alone.’ Susan Cooper #solstice #thedarkisrising