I just flushed a scarlet tiger in my garden (photo from 2 weeks ago). Without wanting to be simplistic, for every species that, assisted by climate change, goes from unheard-of to common, there’s a familiar, much-loved species that can’t cope. Want cattle egrets? Kiss good bye to willow warblers.

Good morning all. I’ve joined Substack, and am opening with a chapter length piece over which I have literally sweated: John Clare, Wild Service, and becoming a fly-tipper. Please visit, & subscribe! substack.com/@amyjanebeer...

Blissfully back in the saddle, after breaking my leg last November. The body remembers, and all weight directed down that bone & into my ankle, felt strong; this dear mare, Millie Mollie Mae, looked after me. Daughter biked along upsides, for company. Love this Black Beauty/ Ladybird book herd.

Cannot wait for this…

Goodnight from Elwood Winn, sitting in his vardo as he whittles yew into Fox Bride memories. Goodnight from The Faerie Plough pub, where a game of Pope Joan has gotten so out of hand that landlord Ron Hayes has put six regulars on warning of lifetime barring. Goodnight from Hookland.

Last nights meander with my daughter, watching barn owls hunting under the moon. ‘Squeaked’ one in across the length of the field on its way back to the barn. It landed briefly on a fence post right in front of us. Magical. Like a dream every time. If this is my super-power, I’m happy with it. 1/3

Loved meeting these two young, brilliant artists at Elmley - hugely inspiring - do check this out!

After devouring the remains of my lunchtime hummus yesterday, the chickens are disappointed in today’s choice of fruit … *dink dink … somebody should sample that, no?

Stunning pink clouds catching the sunset/ moonrise. Grateful for some cooler air. Looks like these will build a thunderstorm somewhere … heading north.

A perfect Country Diary for capturing this ageless farming seasonal task, with the added delight of engaging, informing and humorous comments BTL for this too. Love reading these daily articles that @environment.theguardian.com commission, find I always learn something or kindle a similar memory. :)

The hot & shadeless fields. Days & nights scented with sweet coumarin from the cut grasses & honeysuckle from the hedges, in a process combining work, community, weather & nature, & knowledge just beyond our weather apps. In @environment.theguardian.com today. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Just done the memory game at Morrisons at lunchtime. Luckily I have good object permanence and visual memory.

Ok so just got back from hosing down the old horse*, & I know technically this probably isn’t the general temperature (which apparently is 36C) but on the fence by the garden gate, the thermometer is at 45C. #Heatwave *she loved it by the way

Good humoured, faith-restoring camaraderie at the #heatwave Big Shop. Blinds down to keep fridges working, but a hilarious & discombobulating experience. A memory game for regulars; a pot luck for others, peering round blinds felt distinctly impolite, but lifting them up & down, like a dance.

No comfrey (as yet) in our new garden, so no Scarlet tigers; but this is wonderful from Paul Evans: “Part burlesque, part pirate, this bohemian moth looks as if it were painted by David Hockney” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

It’s no good. Going to have to commit to the 50 min round trip to the Big Shop. Have a feeling any milk or ice cream might not make it home fresh, or anything other than a puddle. If you see me in a gateway with a spoon …

So lovely to see Wild Folk with the Book of Birds.

We're sorry to announce that, due to the Met Office's red extreme heat warning for London on Wednesday, we’ve taken the difficult decision to cancel the Wonder, Loss and Action lobby for the safety of everyone involved. ❗ Registered attendees will receive further details by email. Thank you.

Fantastic stuff. SO SO happy to see this. Hookland is an utterly essential weaving of re-enchantment into our story. No conversation about British fantasy is complete without it. How might we think of it? I think Robert Holdstock would have adored Hookland.

Storm over Bath at 18:03

Not hills, but thunderclouds over the hayfield, & all eeriness & expectation at the yard. A horse whinnies, a roll of thunder answers.

Hello Bristol, I can hear you - you ok? (Son about to head off to work on his bike … torrential rain.)

A real treat to celebrate @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social & Jackie Morris’s beautiful #TheBookofBirds for BBC Countryfile: ‘makes a strong offer to reforge a love across the generations & makes it a resistance-act of beauty.’ Also included Jackie & @tamsintheshed.bsky.social’s stunning #WildFolk 1/2

Goodnight. Alone (The Stroll), Gertrude Abercrombie, 1946.

A real treat to celebrate @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social & Jackie Morris’s beautiful #TheBookofBirds for BBC Countryfile: ‘makes a strong offer to reforge a love across the generations & makes it a resistance-act of beauty.’ Also included Jackie & @tamsintheshed.bsky.social’s stunning #WildFolk 1/2

Midsummer sunset at the ‘new’ sunset gate, with cows, looking out to Wiltshire.

This cottage also for sale in the village (along with lots atm) 1 door down from Bert Jailer’s Gallants. Some are still the homes of rural & farm workers, but most are not, & ask the highest prices. Incredible to think that those that took part in the bread or swing riots went from their doors.

Sheep shearing from the garden gate & haymaking in perfect weather. The sward is spread to dry, to be rowed up & spun out to dry more, before baling. The air’s scented with its sweet coumarin, lanolin from the sheep fleeces, roses, honeysuckle & lime blossom. There’s a June headiness I adore.

Dear swallow. Four nests under the stable roof, glancing zips past ours & the horses’ heads & heels, all spring & summer. That claret-red throat & deep blue sheen, the flashes of white & needle-scissors tail, singing with a voice of many on the swing of the electric light cable. How I love thee.

Dear lord. Been asked in an overly flattering email, to volunteer feedback & advice from my ‘esteemed literary career’ to help develop an AI storytelling platform, for those that struggle to write, plot, visualise & edit their stories. Presumably as my career lays dying. Anyone else? 1/3

Bert ‘Jailer’ Annetts’s cottage ‘Gallants’ is for sale. He was quite the character in my book Ghosts of the Farm. He grew up here with his father Reuben (b1875; blacksmith, shepherd, travelling pig butcher) & it’s their voices I heard one moonlit night, carrying a pack of farm bacon home. 1/3

Brilliant, juicy, bouncy writing from @derekniemann.bsky.social for the Guardian Country Diary today. Makes you look, & marvel harder. “It has a secondhand look, with wrinkly, crinkly jagged hearts for leaves. It has no sheen; it does not shine.”

Bert ‘Jailer’ Annetts’s cottage ‘Gallants’ is for sale. He was quite the character in my book Ghosts of the Farm. He grew up here with his father Reuben (b1875; blacksmith, shepherd, travelling pig butcher) & it’s their voices I heard one moonlit night, carrying a pack of farm bacon home. 1/3

The hill (that I swear is on runners, & wheels itself back & forth, concertina-ing & rucking its field skirts, yet never revealing its lost white horse) was close enough today to suggest a storm. But the only booms & rumbles are coming from the army on the plain. Chinooks chopping up the heavy air.

The hill (that I swear is on runners, & wheels itself back & forth, concertina-ing & rucking its field skirts, yet never revealing its lost white horse) was close enough today to suggest a storm. But the only booms & rumbles are coming from the army on the plain. Chinooks chopping up the heavy air.

In a long history of moving things around the village ‘by hand’, cart or barrow, we will be walking the long ladders from the (no longer) spare stable at the farm, home along the lanes in two stages this week. Beats carrying the wardrobe & dresser on a shortcut across the field & through the wood…

Lovely new festival coming up at villagefarmdevon.com/farm-and-liv... in a ‘celebration of our countryside & rural life.’ Lots of gorgeous stuff in a dreamy setting! Tix here: loveoftheland.co.uk

The ammonite lampposts of Lyme Regis.

Chicken photobombing! It’s Wasing Well Read Festival in the woods by the lake tomorrow, & it’ll be lovely! In conversation with lovely @lucylapwing.bsky.social, hot from @bbcspringwatch.bsky.social about the gorgeous #LoveisaToad, then with brilliant Sarah Langford on my book #GhostsoftheFarm.

The wind blustering through the bearded barley & setting it galloping. The scent of it, drying after the rain, & ripening, is of baking & biscuits & malt, & a dog’s paws. The downs & access island of Rivar’s gap above Ham Spray, beyond.

Good news! Ministers have finally given green light to new #NaturalHistory GCSE. We’ve campaigned so long for this! Big hats off to tireless advocate Mary Colwell 🙌 Now our young people will have a chance to get to know & love the natural world, to feel awe & wonder, & gain skills to protect it 🌷🌳🦡

This post is only an hour old, but the comments are already proving the shift of our focus is real …

See, a proper book, (little book, but a proper one) with an ISBN number and everything. Cover reveal and ordering details coming soon-ish. And yes, there is an-anti piracy, anti LLM curse embedded in the text. It is Hookland – you'd expect nothing less.

The big hill(s) through a veil (a vale!) of rain. Gallows Down of Julia White’s farm (1941-1955) & Ham Hill & the Bull’s Tail, above the Wiltshire Bloomsberries’ Ham Spray, & Doris & Marguerite’s Farm (1938-1989). Imagining them WhatsApping: “Clearing Storm coming to you Julia! A weather window!”

There are homeowners who refuse to be haunted by anything less than a lord or a lady. Refuse to accept their spectres are more likely to be chimney sweeps' climbing boys, maids who took their own lives. Sooty prints and shattered vases tell workers' tales. – #CJosiffe #Ghosts

Congratulations to @nicwilson.bsky.social on paperback publication day for Land Beneath the Waves. It’s a beautiful, raw, moving & brave memoir - go on & treat yourself!

Cant wait to read Mrs Dickens by Emily Howes - who very generously gave #GhostsoftheFarm a shout out as a recommended read! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Wonderfully informative Guardian Country Diary from regenerative arable farmer Colin Chappell: preparation, weather-watching, waiting … www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Not holding back on routinely planting Laurel as a garden hedge, in my rural opinion column in #BBCCountryfile. Plus lovely stuff on rare breed Boreray Sheep, the importance of community involvement & local abbatoirs, from John Craven & Jane Cooper & her ‘Lost Flock.’ @chelseagreenbooks.bsky.social

It’s out folks, the paperback of #thecuckooslea. Newly designed with cool, fold-out flappy bits! If you’ve not bought the book yet, now’s your moment; if you have, well, you’ll want this copy too! ☺️ #birdsandplace #naturewriting