How to help wild birds survive in winter: 🌻 provide food: seeds, suet and peanuts 🌳 grow berry-producing trees and shrubs ❄️ offer fresh water when natural water sources are frozen More: littlegreenspace.org.uk/features/fee...

I just stood next to Britain’s joint-smallest bird, a goldcrest. Tiny and perfect, it piped its tune at me from the hedge. Up to a quarter of these tiny birds won’t make it through a harsh winter so I’m rooting for this one on what will be such a bitterly cold night.

Yesterday’s walk took me past this amazing Caucasian Walnut (with a Beech in front for nice leaf contrast!) - I love its multiple trunks and bright yellow leaves at the moment #ThickTrunkTuesday #Szczecin #ParkKasprowicza

Late autumn in my New England hometown, for #SmallBeautiesHour

And one more ... #SmallBeautiesHour

I was surprised and delighted to spot a Female Common merganser (Goosander - Mergus merganser) in an unexpected place this morning. At c. 10:50hrs on the R. Sow in Victoria Park in Stafford just downstream of the slight weir. Soon flew off! Water too shallow for diving!

#FirstBirdOfMyDay #WhatsYours Three jackdaws, seen through a window, on a roof opposite were the month of October's FBsOMD. When I went out, 16 jackdaws were being vocal on that and the adjacent roof. I could have believed they were strategising for the whole month as well agreeing today's plan! 🖤🩶

🥁🥁🥁 An extra thrill seeing FBOMD because Moorhen is a new 1st bird for me! 😁 I didn't anticipate a 1st time 1st bird ... but at 7.35am peering down on the River Sow, in the middle of a misty Stafford, there was a Moorhen exploring the leafy bank for edibles. 🖤❤️💛🤍💚

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly our whole life would change."- Jack Kornfield (author, and Buddhist Practitioner). #MondayMotivation #flowers #gardening

An interesting news story about crow intelligence. www.bbc.com/news/article...

I noted the inclusion of the image of the Common swift (L. Apus apus) on this poster for a public consultation on Local Nature Recovery Strategy suggesting this county council tier of government is likely to be more supportive than MHCLG, No. 10, etc.!

Heard on BBC R4 an exciting on-site report from the James Hutton Institute, Dundee, of first blueberries 🫐 specifically bred for British conditions nearing ripeness after research programme. I'm looking forward, in due course, to seeing @andrewj27.bsky.social's 'serving suggestion' culinary pic! 📷😋

Observed today, 18 June, one of the plant transitions that I look out for in our garden each year. The first goldenrod to flower in 2025! 😄 In the near future, this will be sought out by pollinators. The area will be buzzing. 🐝🦋

Rosa ‘Eye Love You’, the perfect rose to share with that special person in your life on #RoseWednesday 💕

First bird of my day: garden warbler. Little legend. 8,000 mile migration to return to a thicket on a Cotswolds farm. How cool is that! #FirstBirdOfMyDay #WhatsYours

A great idea💡Moreover, it seems so appropriate given the long-term association of Common swifts nesting in cavities in church towers. www.bbc.com/news/article...

#smallbeautieshour #becauseofClem #threadofgold

Thrilled to be invited to acknowledge Sir David Attenborough publicly through The Guardian’s brilliant tribute where they asked 99 people to say something about the impact this one human has made. ‘Force of Nature’ in this Saturday’s paper.

🪶#NatureNeedsYou tells the compelling story of how @hannahbournetaylor.bsky.social set out to save swifts from extinction in the UK. 'The swifts are lucky to have Hannah fighting their corner' ZAC GOLDSMITH 'A voice for nature' EMMA MARSH, RSPB 'Hannah is a hero of our times' @keggiec.bsky.social

Such a very rare treat to hear a GSW drumming in this part of the world. They only arrived in Ireland around 20 years ago. Slowly spreading West. I spotted my first one ever last weekend. It was some distance off, but marvellous to see 😍

April flowers from my garden to bring colour and joy to your day. #FlowersOnFriday #FlowerFridayFamily

Journeyed to Hertfordshire to a horologists that services Citizen Eco Drive watches. I popped into an independent bookshop & bought this fabulous little novel. (Cost just GBP 2.99 new.) 20mm less 'long' on Y axis, 18mm less on X than standard books these days too! #SmallBeautiesHour

Happy St Piran's Day to the good folk of Cornwall (the county's patron saint). I became aware of many rural postal paths in Cornwall when researching my forthcoming book, The Postal Paths (linktr.ee/postalpaths) and walked the beautiful one at Cawsand..

Each year, I photograph the first tree blossom I see on Deeside. It appears faithfully before the end of February. A tree that was much loved by my late mother as a sign of hope near the end of winter! 1st time highlighted in #SmallBeautiesHour. ❤️😄

Sorry I've missed #SmallBeautiesHour for several weeks. Back on 4th February I was surprised to see a cormorant on the canal in the middle of Chester. I walked towards the bird, which dived, then surfaced some way away, & then took flight. #RubbishBirdPics

A single 400-year-old ancient oak produces 234,000 litres of oxygen a year while soaking up carbon dioxide, and can support more than 2,000 species of bird, insect, fungus, and lichen. Nature is amazing - we need more of it, not less. Please repost if you agree 🌳

If you need a break from your mornings' "What fresh hell is this?" social media ritual, try #FirstBirdOfMyDay. Just birds (ok, and sometimes squirrels), all over the world, being noticed and noted one day at a time.

OK, takes #RubbishBirdPics to an extreme, but a good story! The tide was reaching its height on the Dee between the 3rd & 2nd last bridges. A cormorant was stood on the groyne. When the water washed over its feet, it went diving for fish! ##SmallBeautiesHour 😆

Spotted this antiquated signage out and about on a railway journey which appears to be a notice advising a 'private road' in the name of an owning entity that was replaced as holder of title 77 years ago. A stylish sign that merits #SmallBeautiesHour!

Two male Eurasian Bullfinches (L. Pyrrhula pyrrhula) appeared 7 minutes into my Big Garden Birdwatch Noon to 1pm on 26th ... and stayed the rest of the hour. These gorgeous finches must have been able to access nature's larder or wouldn't have remained where they were so long! 😄🩷🖤🩶🤍🐦 bit.ly/3tgxjGS

Thanks for checking out our 1st post on BlueSky Recovering our seas and marine biodiversity simply means removing the worst activities that impact our seas. That's what we have been doing on the Isle of Arran for 30 years. Taking ACTION to recover our seas one step at a time.

Do me a kindness! Share this if you love and support your local library & librarians (and remember: that includes your school library & school librarian) 😊📚 Thank you libraries & library workers… for everything ✨💚

Oops -- forgot the #SmallBeautiesHour tag!

And, of course ... white-throated sparrows in the snow. (Nobody will be surprised that I took about 25 photos of them 😂) I wonder what they think about the weather being so cold and snowy in a place to which they migrated to keep warm over the winter? #SmallBeautiesHour

We had snow! Not a common thing in Arkansas (we sometimes go a 3 or 4 yrs without so much as a flurry), so of course I went outside in it. #SmallBeautiesHour

Winter icicles #SmallBeautiesHour.

As my just received communication from the National Gallery says: "Get ready for another year of incredible art as we continue to celebrate 200 years of bringing people and paintings together." 🖼 ❤️ #SmallBeautiesHour

My #ReadingNewYearResolution, made 30/01/2024, did effect a change in my 📚 reading scope. Inspired by Marie de La Fayette (1634-1693), "regarded ... as the begin[ner] of the modern tradition of the psychological novel", I decided to complete at least 1 book written/translated by a woman each month ✔️

Recently received a Cornell Lab of Ornithology email nudge for the GBBC 14-17/02/2025. I love the 'Poster bird' image of a Barn swallow! ❤️ I didn't realise that the event is global. Though I can only see one British Isles participating group in Bangor, Co. Down, N.I.?

I know it's a #RubbishBirdPic! Best I could manage to give a #SmallBeautiesHour shout-out to this lovely irrepressible Pied wagtail I saw in Stafford last week. Caught my attention and sympathy as this little 'un is disabled - one passerine foot missing.

Rest easy, when I spotted this tiny snail whilst preparing for the last garden waste bin collection on 04/12/2024, I carefully put the creature back amongst the vegetation! A creature definitely meriting a mention in the #SmallBeautiesHour. 💚🐌😄

Most surprised on the morning of Sunday 29th December to see a familiar fluttering that I instinctively thought was not a moth! A #RubbishButterfliesPhoto but I don't apologise. I didn't dare risk disturbing this little creature basking in the sunshine. #SmallBeautiesHour

This shows what can be done in our cities and towns! Please share if you’d like to see more green spaces boosting biodiversity and providing a lifeline for pollinating insects like this beautiful wildflower meadow at @kingscollege.bsky.social at @cambridgeuni.bsky.social. Let’s bring nature back 🐝

That's ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes,✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes, ✔️Yes Four years ago Reith Lectures by Sir Mark Carney seemed to challenge economists to work out how to value such sustainability and ecological goods. Very little progress to date. #BiodiversityCrisis

Plausibly, this wonderful tiny creature that appeared and flew around delighting me when I cut back withered Michaelmas daisies on 04/12/2024, is a Common plume moth. I think it is suitable to feature in the #SmallBeautiesHour.

A Ukrainian story tells of a spider who brought joy to a poor family by covering their fir tree with silvery webs that magically transformed into tinsel on #Christmas morning. To this day spider ornaments and tinsel are used to decorate trees in memory of this kindness. #folklore

When I stayed away after my aunt's funeral at the end of November, my older brother and I dined the next day in a US diner road trip-themed restaurant. A distinctive feature was a display of 60 US vehicle registration plates. I struggled to find the Arkansas plate looking for "AR"! 🙄