Same with stacking rocks on beaches and mountains. Rocks are where animals live! It also demonstrates a particularly unpleasant arrogance and lack of appreciation for nature IMO

1970: Birmingham - The Venice of England? | Loook Stranger | BBC Archive.

Absolutely delighted that Dan Briggs, son of the BBC's first official historian Asa Briggs, has written to The Observer supporting the need for on-request vetting to re-instated at the BBC Written Archives Centre (p.29; not I think online). Letter's wording is in the .alt element. #waccampaign

Wow 😲 How lucky is our colleague Becky to see a tawny owl hunting in her garden in daylight? They’re usually more active at night but they are sometimes seen hunting during the day 🦉 #wildlife #nature #NatureLovers #NatureVibes #WildlifeConservation #Worcestershire #birds #birdwatching #owl #owls

First light. Amblecote Road to Wychbury.

Real ship timbers! Dated 953-65 and from an English ship built in the south-east. Reused in the walling of a Viking-era house on Hungate, York. Currently on display at the Yorkshire Museum.

Yikes - the land surrounding the Cerne Abbas Giant is up for sale! Lot 1 is top-quality chalk downland bursting with wildflowers & butterflies - orchids, skippers… going for £950k. It absolutely needs to be preserved. Hope the NT or similar can buy wdcdn.co/media/pdf/0f... wdcdn.co/media/pdf/0f...

🔭 Look back into history and see where it all began... 2025 marks 80 years since Sir Bernard Lovell first arrived at Jodrell Bank on a cold December morning, interested in discovering whether radar (which he had learnt about during the Second Word War) could be used to study cosmic rays. 🧵[1/3]

Saddened to learn that Dr Marie Rowlands passed away recently. I was incredibly lucky to sit next to her in some of our WM History MA lectures. At the time I had terrible imposter syndrome but she was really kind and so knowledgeable about the BC landscape - which I loved!

WILD WINGS (1964)

One striking thing about the NYer for me is that, while preserving a tone of status-quo decorum (and luxury ads), it has published some of the most radical and impactful journalism in this country's history, "Hiroshima," "Silent Spring," 1/3

​An overnight walk from Kirk Sandall to Goole, via the River Don Navigation, the New Junction Canal, the Aire and Calder Navigation and the Dutch River, 6.30pm Friday 25 July to 5.30am Saturday 26 July. An improvised, illustrated thread of uncertain length, part reflection, part reconstruction. 1/

Life’s a bit tough right now (caring for two elderly parents) but tawny owls, hawking pipistrelles, and our resident fox are helping a lot. Dog days and dusk, best bit of summer. Also: three swifts - still here. Crap apples/opples and hazel nuts everywhere.

1776: Wheat begins to turn colour. Ricked the hay & finished the rick. Fern owls chatter, & curlews clamor.

What can you say about Ozzy? Whatever it is, it's in a Brummie accent. Hard to imagine a world without him, Ozzy brought so much joy, humour and raw power to the world, in a life of many chapters. Ozzy was a cat who had way more than nine lives.

Wrote a piece for @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social’s #30DaysWild. All about how to get more medieval with your connections to local place. Includes a ‘medieval’ map my daughter drew of a place in our village—a memory map of nature landmarks. #naturewriting www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/30-days...

Thank goodness for no ball.

This time of year is perfect for orchid spotting! In B&BC, there are records of 15 different species and one hybrid. See if you can spot some of those species using our quick ID guide. Here at Centre of the Earth, both the Common Spotted Orchid and the Bee Orchid are currently in bloom!

Chris Baines on Bunny Teagle. His field technique was suitably unorthodox: travelling everywhere on double-decker buses, peering over walls and fences, and leaping off from time to time to add a further treasure to his ever-growing list. In 1978 the survey, called The Endless Village,was published.

Help us track the Willow Tit in Walsall! Sites in Walsall where we think Willow Tit may be present include: Rough Wood Chase LNR, Goscote Valley, Leylands Farm in Pelsall, Walsall Country Park and Park Lime Pits.

(1/3) This is shared directly in the thread, too: Hi everyone, please know we’re reading every comment and having a lot of discussions on our end. We're working on a response that should answer most of the major questions people have and provide more clarity. We'll share this as soon as possible.

This goes some way to address my concerns, but I think it's safe to say that this announcement has been horribly handled

A carpet of cow-wheat (Melampyrum pratense) along Loch Lomond — is it just me, or is cow-wheat having a great year? Don’t think I’ve ever seen this much of it in Ireland before 🌼🌿 @bsbibotany.bsky.social @bsbiscotland.bsky.social

9/6/24 Lancashire - I’d planned to report on some CT scans this afternoon but fat chance of that happening due to a power cut 🤦🏻‍♂️ So instead, live from the field, the first of the summer #orchids, the Dark Red Helleborine (Epipactis atrorubens) #wildflowerhour @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Siouxsie & The Banshees’ Nocturne show, filmed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1983, is on Sky Arts at 23:30 tonight (Saturday 7 June)

Massive sigh...

"If you go down to the woods today, it's not how it used to be..." So many of our ancient woods have been felled for conifer plantations. But under the forest floors, their ghosts lie in wait. Amazing new campaign to REWILD THE GHOST WOODS launched by @wildcard.land: bsky.app/profile/wild...

Such a shame. The website is packed with wonderful films, podcasts and articles about the region. Malcolm Dick's film, Perceptions of Pollution, is a great place to start. historywm.com/films/percep...

Michael Warren has written a terrific book about birds, people and the past. I've reviewed it for British Birds. britishbirds.co.uk/journal/arti... @drmjwarren.bsky.social

Deep England/Defford. The view from Rebecca Road.

​‘The hypocrisy is staggering’ - I said that because the Govt has said they will whip against the swift brick amendment that they whipped for 2 years ago….They CAN still embrace it. Thanks Patrick for covering swift bricks as we welcome swifts home. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The Planning Bill "would have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection... As drafted, the provisions are a regression." The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) gives its damning verdict: www.theoep.org.uk/report/oep-g...

The nettle family from 'wild flowers of the British Isles' by Harriet Isabel Adams. I hadn't realised that she was born in Stourbridge and probably studied at the Birmingham School of Art

Elder, guelder, and crab.

This pleases me no end. Skylarks have probably always been at Ketley, it's just taken me decades to pay attention.

Swifts over the brewery. They’re back in DY5.

Ketley in May: a tangled, feral mess of a place. Heard skylark, and screaming swifts!! Crab apple blossom, ramsons, bluebells, meadow buttercup, hedge mustard, cow parsley. Wych elm, guelder and elder flowers forming. Hawthorn blossom everywhere. Bird cherry just going over.

Positive folklore. The swallows & house martins have arrived & the swifts are on their way. Up until the mid-20thC, they were amongst the few birds whose nests were considered lucky. Even hardened farmers worried about losing them. Time to get that sentiment back.

SWIFT! Over the locks. First of 2025. JOY!

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool. King John - Act 4, scene 2 Glass in Halesowen, designed & drawn by Florence Camm for the Camm Studio Smethwick #ShakespeareSunday #StainedGlassSunday

Had a look while I was waiting for the kettle to boil. It was commonly believed in the Black Country that the sun danced on Easter Sunday.

The wisteria is starting to flower. It’ll do the same again in July.💜

Get ready!⏳ In just over a week, Birmingham and the Black Country will join cities across the globe in the City Nature Challenge 🌎 — a worldwide effort to record urban wildlife, and an opportunity to get wild! Want to take part? Attend an organised event and help put our region on the leaderboard!🏆

1776: Mowed all round the garden. Cut the first brace of cucumbers: they were well-grown. Nightingale sings.

And if you’d rather go straight to the source, here it is. Lots of nature apps give you instant answers. What’s that bird? What’s that plant? Encounter works in a deeper, subtler way, encouraging curiosity and engagement. www.encounter-nature.com

This is bloody awful from Toby Carvery, who have deliberately felled a 500 year old oak in Enfield. It goes together with the wider redevelopment of a very ecologically sensitive area to make a football ground for Tottenham. Again, these are not the right priorities folks.

1776: Swallow appears at Selborne. Cucumbers swell.

Explore 28 full Lento episodes plus some extras including this short clip of gorgeous skylarks we just added.

Seems a bit glitchy, limited info when you click into a location, and no legend - unless I'm missing something. Very much here for the mapping of non-woodland trees though.

Bird cherry (I think?) Two lovely old trees in the hedgerow along the boundary of Ketley farm (long gone).