Monthly report for December 2025. Oxford & London. rossmac.blogspot.com/2026/01/mont...

Day 12, and lovely to end #12DaysWild with a snow day. 📷 #photography @wildlifebcn.org

Two of the three Taiga Bean Geese in the snow at Toab, Shetland this afternoon. #BirdingScotland #UKbirding #UKWildlife #Birds

Back to @bbowt.bsky.social’s C S Lewis Nature Reserve for Day 12 of #12DaysWild Thank you for the encouragement to get outside in #Nature #Oxford #5January2026 #Winter #12DaysOfChristmas

Earth Blue tit singing on a cold early morning. You can even see its song in the air. photography by | Mikhail Kalinin

Day 11 #12DaysWild, Feather and Buds, Bury Knowle Park #Oxford #4January2026 #Winter

Day 10 #12DaysWild, Garden Snow and Robin #Oxford #3January2026 #Winter

Oxford in the winter sunshine…

#superbloodwolfmoon #wolfmoon #fullmoon

Day 9 #12DaysWild, Mesopotamia Walk #Oxford #2January2026 #Winter

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... @bsbibotany.bsky.social

For New Year’s Day 2026, a hellenistic glass vase shaped like a pomegranate. 2nd century BC - 1st century AD. A symbol of abundance and good luck for the year ahead! 📷 Phoenix Art phoenixancientart.com/work-of-art/... #Archaeology

Day 8 #12DaysWild, Around OX3 - not quite a #NewYearPlantHunt #Oxford #January12026 #NewYear2026 #Winter #StillChristmas @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social Stinking Iris, possibly Black or White Bryony (?), Primrose and Winter Heliotrope

2025 - a year in twelve pictures rossmac.blogspot.com/2026/01/2025...

My husband and I took part in a few @btobirds.bsky.social surveys this year. We previously had very little experience, but it was fun & we learned a lot in the process. Maybe you'd like to sign up for one of their volunteer projects in 2026? www.bto.org/get-involved... #birds #NewYearResolutions

Day 7 #12DaysWild, Around OX3 - trees and snowdrops #Oxford #December312025 @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Day 6 #12DaysWild, Greater Periwinkle (Vinca Major) with Ivy #Oxford #December302025 @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

An appropriate picture for this time of year. The Blessed Virgin reads in bed while Joseph looks after the baby. All watched over by the ox and the ass. From the 15th century Besancon Book of Hours. A woman, with a book to hand for that moment of leisure, after my own heart!

Day 5 #12DaysWild, Mesopotamia Walk #Oxford #December292025

This is excellent from @danrebellato.bsky.social, just listened on #BBCSounds

Day 4 #12DaysWild, A gift of greenery #Oxford #December282025

Morning everyone. I’ve got a new play on tomorrow (Tuesday) and on @bbcsounds.bsky.social thereafter. It’s about PG Wodehouse’s war and it’s a comic defence of laughter in dark times. BBC Radio 4, 23 Dec, 2.15pm.

Day 3 #12DaysWild, Grey Squirrel and Scots Pine tree in Bury Knowle Park @oldheadington.bsky.social #Oxford #December272025

Day 2 #12DaysWild, sunlight on trees in Bury Knowle Park @oldheadington.bsky.social #Oxford #BoxingDay2025

I'm stopping by to offer these words for Christmas. I hope to see you all in the new year.

Day 1 #12DaysWild, sunlight on trees in @bbowt.bsky.social’s C S Lewis Nature Reserve, aka #Narnia #Oxford #MerryChristmas2025

Flowers and angels at @elycathedral.bsky.social. 📷 #photography

Today on a desert slope, I found frosted Christmas stars: a rare succulent (Apteranthes burchardii) that produces starbursts of blossom after it rains:

Planet Forest is a new collection of twelve poems created by scientists, educators, young people, writers & artists for COP30. It aims to link science and the arts to inspire positive climate action and is supported by the University of Exeter Green Futures, the British Council and the Met Office.

Midwinter reading. Also available on #BBC Sounds, thanks to @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social #TDIR #WinterSolstice

'When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire, The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches, In windless cold that is the heart’s heat, Reflecting in a watery mirror A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.' — Little Gidding #Wintersolstice

A terrible storm which devastated the country closed in #OTD in 1052. Symeon of Durham says it was so great ‘as to destroy many churches and houses, and to break or tear up by the roots innumerable trees’. 📸Mike Pennington #medievalsky

Photographer, anthropologist Alegra Ally accompanied the Nenets seasonal migration, to show the lives of indigenous women in the Siberian Arctic #WomensArt

What's the perfect #ChristmasGift for the plant-lover in your life? If they're not already #BSBImembers, how about a year's membership of @bsbibotany.bsky.social? Choose a printed membership pack, posted to your loved one, or a digital pack pinging into their Inbox on Christmas Day. bsbi.org/gift

From the 'Shared Sky' exhibition by Indigenous #Australian painter Barbara Merritt #WomensArt #December14th #Peace🕯

Writing With: Beasts, Work, Windows, Mirrors, Music, Jack Gilbert and Mis-placed things, our North Sea Poets 2026 spring course is now available. For all details, and to book, please click below. www.northseapoets.com/courses

Photographer, anthropologist Alegra Ally accompanied the Nenets seasonal migration, to show the lives of indigenous women in the Siberian Arctic #WomensArt

🏺🦣🧪 A short chat with @whippletom.bsky.social about this discovery and its broader context www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Major update to our map of Anglo-Saxon London... we've now added etymologies for each place name, so you can find out what your bit of London used to be called.... and why londonist.substack.com/p/mapping-an...

🕰️ With the year coming to an end, we asked a selection of our contributors to give us their favourite poetry books and pamphlets of 2025. Next is Helen Farish's pick: The Anchorage by Bernard O’Donoghue (Faber). Thank you, Helen!

Pictures from the monthly report for November 2025. Trees & Seas rossmac.blogspot.com/2025/12/mont...

Have you ever seen something like this before?

Good news! Our Jessica Holm cards are now back in stock! Order now to get yours for Christmas! Last date for postage is 15th December. www.shop.curlewaction.org/cards/

This #ExploreYourArchive Week we’re delving into our BTO collections, starting with lantern slides belonging to pioneer wildlife photographer Oliver G. Pike (1877-1963). #EYAConservation #WildlifePhotography 🪶

It's Mackerras 100 on BBCRadio3 today. The great Australian conductor Charles Mackerras born on this day in 1925. Breakfast is packed full of his recordings and we'll get to hear him in interviews as we plunder the BBC archives. 6.30-9.30.

Good news; the section of Lye Valley fen boardwalk destroyed by arson in the summer has been repaired by Oxford City Council Parks staff- thanks! @friendlyevalley.bsky.social

The BBC must reassert its independence and learn to resist political interference and stand up for robust scrutiny and news values. The Culture Sec Lisa Nandy must also resist Trumpian pressure in appointing the new DG. It's messy and the Beeb is in trouble, but we should fight for its future.

Meanwhile, this coming January, I've the Up Helly Aa winter tour I co-lead here in Shetland for Shetland Nature with my good pal Kate to look forward to. There are still some places available if you fancy a wild and wintery #Shetland adventure with us. www.shetlandnature.net/holidays/she...

Petition: Stop the Guga Hunt. Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend Section 16 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to remove the power to grant licences for killing young Gannets. Please sign and Repost. #BirdingScotland #UKbirding #Birds #UKWildlife