The variety of German bees before the Industrial Revolution (187, top) vs after the introduction of pesticides (43, bottom), DHM

There are only 11 organisations listed on the UK Foreign Influence Registration Scheme public register. * foreign-influence-registration-scheme.service.gov.uk/public-regis... #chocolateFireguard

Started / going

Ring ditch & settlement 0, agriculture 1. Ewieside Hill, Cockburnspath, Scottish Borders. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

tfw the LIDAR runs out of poop just before your feature of interest. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

UAE going all out to Streisand the idea that you're not safe there whether or not a missile falls on your head. Excellent work, no notes.

In which Canmore decides that pretty much everything in this boggy west Shetland moorland is worthy of notice. (Centre is approx HU 24268 51410 ... PastMap doesn't take arguments on URLs, so no possibility of a link to it) * pastmap.org.uk/map

A380 flying backwards into Heathrow, according to ADS-B Exchange. Nice trick.

This 1900s cartographer had drawn enough brochs by then to know that this was not such a thing. What was (presumably) he thinking? Kame of Isbister, Mainland, Shetland. Posited as a mid C9th monastic settlement. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

ngl, I kinda wonder how the Glasgow fire got from this to that /with/ the fire brigade on scene.

Meticulous, well-argued and generally fascinating Words? What do they mean? article just dropped.

Meldrum House Golf Course, inspired in part by the lilia of the Antonine Wall. No sharpened stakes, though; probably a mistake.

Distribution of wind turbines in the UK, according to OpenStreetMap ... about 13,500 of. Space for one or two more, I feel. * overpass-turbo.eu/s/2lws

Fun fact: this facility cost $1.06 Billion, rising by 2021 to $1.21 Billion taking account of maintenance. It has, allegedly, been taken out by a ~$35,000 drone. #SoMuchWinning * www.executivebiz.com/articles/ray...

Dark ages singular and fairly epic countour fort, described by RCAHMS as 'impressive', and 'I do not know anything comparable' ... which you'll never see b/c it's under trees and scrub. Just along a plateau from a huge Roman fort area. Inchtuthil, Perth & Kinross,. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

Get that hillfort ploughed. Why not? The Chesters, Spott, East Lothian. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/... * www.trove.scot/place/57792#...

Big up the owners of Little Scews on Hoy, who seem to have decided to plant a vast arboretum around their shabby little cottage. * www.bing.com/maps/search?...

A little unsatisfactory that Canmore/Trove has zero thoughts on what this structure on Hoy, Orkney, might be. The 'D' shape is about 50 metres west-east. * www.bing.com/maps/search?...

A little unsatisfactory that Canmore/Trove has zero thoughts on what this structure on Hoy, Orkney, might be. The 'D' shape is about 50 metres west-east. * www.bing.com/maps/search?...

Trouble with Reviewer 2? Why not carve your alternative theory into the side of your house instead? (seen on a facade on New Street, Scalloway, Shetland)

tfw a huge Grade B listed country house is just not big enough for you, your family and your helicopter. Balgray House, East Renfrewshire; the original house is the top of the C-section complex. What looks like the courtyard is the roof of a structure, so 3x size? * www.nvdc.co.uk/balgray-house

Cricket ground - top left - mimicing an Iron Age scooped settlement (bottom right). Easy mistake to make. Balgray Cleuchheads, Dumfries and Galloway. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

In which the famer had some fun. Hetlandhill, Carrutherstown, Dumfries and Galloway.

Nice Iron Age scooped settlement you have there. Shame if it was completely obscured by a spruce plantation of negligible value. (Part #837 in an endless series of wholly avoidable shit.) Shiel Burn in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/... * www.trove.scot/place/67307

Was wondering why & on what authority Quholme (Rackwick, Hoy, Orkneys) had been renamed Bunnertoon by Ordnance Survey (as you do). Seems to be that Peter Maxwell Davies ascribed that name to the cottage when he restored & lived in it. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

Corn drying kiln, it being rather wet much of the time on Hoy, Orkney, Scotland. Probably owned by a clergyman, built on glebe land. Post-medieval, Canmore says. A nearby manse, they say, is 18th-century. * www.google.com/maps/place/H...

Cropmarks ftw. The Grange Bronze age Class I henge in Balmerino, Fife, Scotland, doesn't care about your ploughing. 2,700 or more years old. * www.bing.com/maps/search?...

Shite cartography, OpenStreetMaps. Huge slurry tank at Dalwinton Roads, Dumfries and Galloway, represented by a tiny icon. * www.openstreetmap.org#map=19/55.14...

BBC News website actively preferring and promoting Kristi Noem's version of the Pretti killing, by omitting a key paragraph in his parents' note and inserting Noem's falsehoods.

Manny Shinwell's racism not featured in his Wikipedia article. Whitewash, as it were.

Nice Neolithic class II henge you have there. Shame if anyone were to fill in parts of the ditch to construct golf bunkers, and place a putting green in its centre. Castle Hill Henge, now hole 13 of the Muir of Ord Golf Club, Highland, Scotland. * maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/...

Ofcom, the parliament that passed the Online Safety Act, and Starmer's cabinet all busy brushing this under the carpet as if industrial-scale CSAM and revenge porn was not happening. Regulation and government by quislings.

In the UK, we have Robert Jenrick, the Telegraph and Matt Goodwin doing exactly the same thing..

Not Thunderbirds, but you could be forgiven. The Ryan X-13 Vertijet (aka Model 69; nice.)

For those of you unclear why some of us are distinctly concerned about a digital ID system in the UK, this is what our Home Secretary is currently thinking about. www.thenational.scot/news/2578000...

Patrick O’Donovan needs to resign. Man's not fit for purpose.

Don't even know where to begin. The Saltire Society Civil Engineering Award for, I think, Paisley's 1993 St James Motorway Interchange (but also its 1832 cholera pandemic?). File under wtf, or civic pride, or idk, what were you thinking?

Do you know of a museum, library, or archive that offers images from their collection for publication or presenting, for free? Please use the form below to help crowd-source a list of these magical places!

📆 It's now 2026, which means it is over 50 years since 2025. Hats off to the @natlibscot.bsky.social Map Library for getting the latest batch of out-of-copyright large scale OS maps online already! maps.nls.uk/additions/#191 🗺️🎉

This sailed under my radar; apparently 1,000 memorial beacons placed around the UK as part of a nationwide remembrance project to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. Who knew?

Oh beautiful bridge on the river Moray! You have fallen down, and I'm sorry to say That our public finances are in such disarray It seems (as of the date I write this rhyme) You will remain down for a very long time

Bad news for Firefox users; Mozilla's new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, doesn't understand or doesn't care about the browser's USP. Modern AI browser my arse, @mozilla.org.

Regret to report a fair amount of McGonagalling on Bluesky rueing this bridge failure.

Scottish mining memorials, 127 of. * overpass-turbo.eu/s/2gSk

Honestly impressed with Google AI Studio's OCRing & presentation of various pages from a ~1870 Ordnance Survey Name Book. Interesting morning spent trying to school it out of errors, wherein it was a) prone to regression failures and b) slippery as an eel. Can see why it's a substitute for crack.

tfw you've definitely tested your crossword puzzle UI on Firefox, @theobserveruk.bsky.social

Google helpfully showing a picture of Edlingham against a search for Eglingham, b/c it's a halfwit.

Jane Haining's Stolperstein (tr: stumble-stone) mapped on OpenStreetMaps, one amongst now more than 46,000 across Europe. * overpass-turbo.eu/s/2g7n

Fear I may have done for poor Ian at Highland HER, who made the mistake of taking the weekend off :(

Not clear, but possible Gaelic nationalism detected on Finlay Cook's memorial in Reay Old Cemetery; Fionnagh being the Gaelic rendering, afaik. * www.geograph.org.uk/photo/7171975