There are so many amazing finds from prehistoric pile dwellings settlements: 3,500-year-old wooden whisks found in settlements at the Lake Carera/Italy. By rotating the shaft, it’s possible to whip cream until it turns into butter. Larger whisks were presumably used for making cheese. 🧵1/2 🏺

It increasingly looks like scraping will be our preferred management treatment for future restoration of butterfly habitat on these heathland mine sites (at least where a humus layer has developed beneath the heather sward).

Cyrtomium macrophyllum found by a friend on the access tunnel to his air raid shelter in mid Norfolk. Now confirmed by the referee this is the 4th GB records and the first outside of London. The wide almost symmetrical pinnae and ragged sori separate it from related species

One city. 9 million people. All of us Londoners. We will never be divided.

@davegoulson.bsky.social !! "... [Dave Goulson] tackles the problems of industrial food production head on, but in a way that is empathetic, non-judgemental, pragmatic and hopeful. Eat the Planet Well is a guide to sustainable, ethical, healthy eating."

#TeamMoth #MothFaceFriday A couple of minutes late, but here's the White Ermine!

Apologies in advance that I will be quoting this dog for the rest of my life.

This Bluesky feed serves to disseminate information and new posts related to Operation CRUSADER, the #desertwar in WW2 and #ww2 in general. If desert #armour warfare, surrendering Germans, and challenges to preconceived ideas about the Italians are your thing, you might want to give us a follow.

Birdwatchers flushing birds, ht. How can we expect others to follow codes when they see us doing this? Brent Geese flushed from favoured feeding to lesser area. Tho' may not look that bad, feeding interrupted for most for > 1/2hr. 🤔Not as if they've got a big migration coming up🤨 #Medway estuary

There's still time to book for 'Talking Raptor Persecution with Dr Ruth Tingay' - next Wednesday 20 May at 5.30pm. #FreeEvent Time to learn how we can all play a part in ending the criminal killing of #BirdsofPrey 🫶 Book via: friendsofthedales.org.uk/events #RaptorPersecution

NEW BLOG, following up our recent video: how to how to submit records of rare breeding birds rbbp.org.uk/2026/05/15/s...

Taiwan now getting the Ukraine treatment.

“A new entry in this years' Sunday Times Rich List is Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis and her family, who hold an estimated fortune of £400m” Maybes they could start paying some of the artists who aren’t on the telly then. When I were a lad it all went to Greenpeace to save the whale (did it fuck)

This is a form of psychosis. These people will burn the world if they have their way.

It’s mental health awareness week. I have always been very honest with my struggles since childhood, which was a very difficult one. Waking in nature helps some. I try always to be kind as I know from experience you can never know how people are feeling inside. Always be kind 😊

Opinion | 'The decision to prioritise Reform-curious voters over Labour loyalists and Green-friendly floaters has been catastrophic' 🖋️ @mrjamesob.bsky.social Read more: trib.al/vvpuin8

An unintended truth from the mouth of a moron.

VANCE: THERE IS FRAUD ALL AROUND US

Remember that simple 4-stage economic framework I shared with you at the start of the Middle East conflict? It’s important to recognize that our current inflation concerns are a direct part of this progression, which started with a concentrated price shock (energy and borrowing costs -- Stage 1)...

While I’m on the topic of horrible aquatic weeds, I can’t forget water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes [formerly Eichhornia c.]). It has buoyant, air-filled petioles that keep plants afloat, while they choke waterways & shade out submerged aquatics. 📷: Louisiana Sea Grant. #Pontederiaceae 2/2

This starts well and then gets better. Lovely stuff.

Should be a no-brainer, but 'public opinion'...

Ban private jets and cut speed limits to avert UK fuel crisis, say campaigners

#TeamMoth For the first time in 24 years I managed to get the flail-operator to cut the hedges I wanted and leave those I didn't, a long story with some aggressive confrontations. Rewarded with these feeding traces of Epinotia abbreviana - VC80 2nd record and 4th modern record from Borders 4xVC's!

Four: The motivation for program is a Memorandum to make American "Science and Technology" double plus good. But here in the real world we don't make science great simply through disruption, destruction, and hype. That approach is childish and fundamentally cannot achieve stated goals

Quick bike ride. Estuary? Busy. 'Berge Arzew' (LNG, in from Algeria). Fure Viskar (aviation fuel, last port Brofjorden, Sweden). Medway shore? Quiet. Free car park Motney, empty (very few cars on roads). Local fishermen confirmed last few times out, no small fish caught, odd for time of yr.

This is the solution to 過労死

Another very worrying incursion of a non-native predator onto a Scottish Island, after the recent news of rats on Mousa.

⏰ Friendly reminder: Our 2026 Awareness Packs are still available to order as part of this year’s Be Tick Aware campaign. Order a FREE pack here: cognitoforms.com/LymeDiseaseU... 📥 Digital downloads are also available: lymediseaseuk.com/awareness-pa... #LymeDiseaseAwareness #BeTickAware

This is the beginning of the end for bird shooting in this country.

JD Vance, the VP of the man who is currently shaking down the DOJ for a $10 billion "settlement" and the Treasury for an additional $1 billion for his tacky, vanity ballroom, appearing at a "Protecting Taxpayer Dollars" event, is shamelessly comical.

I know there’s a lot going on in the world, and we don’t have enough attention to pay to any of it. But the throttling of Cuba by the US should be a bigger story than it is. There are about 10 million people in Cuba, subjected to horrendous collective punishment. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

This! We know we're just a little bit biased, but we really couldn't agree more. "Nowhere else in the world will you find an arts and cultural scene as rich, varied and beloved as London." bit.ly/3R5yEvK

I hope whoever the next PM is (pray God it's Milliband as least-worst option) does *not* feel the customary obligation to give the unsuccessful candidate a Cabinet post in a show of unity. I want Streeting to be Minister In Charge Of Being In The Stocks Pelted With Rotten Tomatoes.

This was stupid when the police were asked to investigate Zahawi and Rayner, and it's stupid now. There's no evidence of dishonesty by Zahawi/Rayner/Polanski and the police should simply say that and not get drawn into these games. Carelessly paying wrong tax is not a crime.

I am among 6 new commissioners appointed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I look forward to contributing to the board's strategic role overseeing the EHRC's work to enforce equality laws + protect human rights, and to helping to renew its relationships www.gov.uk/government/n...

Fully in favour of this, but the upper classes and their lackeys will not expect to receive prison sentences for ripping apart foxes and stags with their hounds. Justice is still class-based.

Oh, well. Climate change won't affect me...

Meltwater from retreating ice sheets rapidly destabilized methane hydrates beneath the Greenland shelf, releasing methane and highlighting a fast-acting climate feedback mechanism.

I covered that march. Here's the first paragraph of the story I wrote about it: www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-t...

#TeamMoth Most aptly named of moths, the White Ermine - my first of the year last night. Other notable events, a Quail calling on the other side of the hedge as I checked the trap at 22:30, and when I glanced at the kitchen clock at midnight a Bee Moth was clinging to the clock face. Spooky!

I strongly recommend the biography of Clare, by Jonathan Bate.

Way to go Hampstead Heath Ponds!

And folk wonder why we talk about ecological breakdowns: in the past on this sort of date, today's brisk, chilly headwind would have been a dead cert to produce a strong passage of Swifts and a good fall of migrants; today we logged 3 Swifts and 28 nets - many open for 10 hours - caught 5 migrants!

From Scotland for #BirdsSeenIn2026

John Clare, a heavenly poet!

Wednesday #nightread John Clare’s ‘The Nightingale’ 💚