BOATER is doing tremendously well - check out the Amazon reviews if that is your style - and my goodness, what a GREAT CHRISTMAS PRESENT IT WOULD MAKE. It's both a personal history and a history of the canals, with some startling information about the marital relations of ducks along the way.

Hooray! A new book by the one and only Luke Kennard poet!

Thrilled to see these crimson wax caps in the school wildlife patch I’ve managed for nature since 2000:

Delighted to find this 1941 reprint of the 1910 first edition of The Oxford Book of Ballads ed Quiller Couch with these superb endpapers mapping the border terrain:

Im judging this years @cafewriters.bsky.social poetry competition - its now open so send me your best poems. www.cafewriters.co.uk/home/poetry-... #poetrycompetition

Just a reminder that the Cafe Writers International poetry competition is open. Our wonderful (sole) judge this year is Jessica Mookherjee. Top prize is £1000 www.cafewriters.co.uk/home/poetry-...

Hooray! Off to do poetry in Wytham Woods with Oxford Stanza and soil ecologist @jedsol.bsky.social

Exciting news for poetry readers and writers:

Nine days to submit a poem to the Fall Issue of Forgotten Ground Regained. alliteration.net/call-for-submissions/ #poetry #submissions #Norse #Viking #poetrysky #BlueSkyPoets #PoetsOnBluesky #skypoets #poetrycommunity #litmags #alliterativeverse

The Thomas Hardy Society is officially on Bluesky! Follow us to learn more about #ThomasHardy - we'll be posting events, news, and more.

🌿 Banks at risk from nature loss A new study finds 72% of euro-area companies rely on ecosystem services, and 100 banks drive 87% of the sector’s biodiversity footprint. Flood and climate risks compound exposure. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s43... #SciComm 🧪

I think this is brilliant:

📚 It's August, which means the #SealeyChallenge is underway! To help you on your journey to read a book every day this month, The Poetry Society has gotten in touch with poets we've recently worked with for some recommendations. Next up is Ian Duhig, who is on the judging panel for (...)

Native bees! All photographed recently in the garden. At the moment I’m especially enamored with what I believe are male Western leafcutters: ginger and fuzzy with big green eyes!

📢 Job alert! UKCEH are looking for a Senior Freshwater Ecologist to join their Aquatic Ecosystems Group, based at their Edinburgh site! 💦🧪 @ukceh.bsky.social #UKCEH_AquaEco share.google/P4sSI2ulbXL9...

🌳 Dame Judi Dench is calling for the return of ancient woodlands. Will you sign the petition to help restore the Ghost Woods and protect our green spaces for future generations? you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/br...

Who remembers all those names for fishing flies? Greenwell’s Glory, Partridge and Orange, March Brown. Father setting out hoping there would be a summer evening hatch of mayfly to excite trout and grayling in the Wharfe.

Absolutely delighted to see this, and proud to be a (micro) shareholder. Loved staying at Bunloit and Tayvallich and learning about the nature recovery work in progress there.

I am starting a PhD and am looking for grassland restoration/rewilding sites in Northern Ireland! Please forward this flier to anyone who might be interested in having their land surveyed for fungi!

Pollinators: Vital for nature & human well-being, but increasingly threatened.🌍 @ipbes.net #PollinationAssessment highlights the critical roles of pollinators, the threats they face, and the severe consequences of their decline. 🧪 For #WorldBeeDay, swipe through to discover their crucial roles! 🦋

Job Opportunity: Lecturer in Ecology and Global Change at University of Leeds. We welcome dynamic applicants from across the world to join our team of tropical ecology and global change scientists. jobs.leeds.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Calling all nature lovers in cities, towns and villages! 🐦🦆 Have you signed up to our Birds in Greenspaces pilot survey yet? ➡️ bit.ly/birds-greensp... #UKBirding #Birds

I don't know who needs this but there is a gentle and inspiring documentary about moss on the BBC iplayer and when I watch it I sigh and feel better, you might like it too, moss is hardcore, adaptable, survivor of ice and fire, it is ancient, lives on air, the guardian of the trees, and that's you.

Happy World Poetry Day! To celebrate the occasion, we are making The Poetry Review modern archive freely available for the next 24 hours for everyone to enjoy the best in international poetry. Click here to take advantage of this offer! bit.ly/4irqvug 📚

Just updated my quarterly spreadsheet of (mostly UK and Irish) #poetry mags - when they're open, how to submit etc. Every link checked by a human (me!) - It's free, and you can sign up here robinhoughtonpoetry.co.uk/poetry-magaz...

This is nice - Research Gate tells me this paper on how fungi help woodland ecosystems to work has had 2500 reads. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Blenheim land at Bladon was blitzed with glyphosate ‘to eliminate blackgrass’ in 2013 but later a subsequent 3-year regenerative rotation eliminated it.

Thank goodness

I hope they will examine #BotleyWestSolar Farm proposal for its claim of 70% BNG -,apparently to be generated by bat and bird boxes in the ruined landscape.

Impressive @herdyshepherd.bsky.social at #ORFC this morning demanding gov support for sustainable farming systems to trap and sequester C and ensure farm succession.

Great review. I’m still asking myself if a soil microbiome might be a helpful pointer in exploring the living basis of ‘soil health’ - eg by analogy with the human gut microbiome.

In my experience developers’ claims to restore nature are not enforced. Local councils no longer include experts.

PSA for cat owners in the US: cats have been contracting H5N1 (bird flu). They are very susceptible to it and the fatality rate for cats is 67%. To avoid it: -keep your cats indoors. They can catch it from infected birds and mice. -do not feed them raw dairy -do not feed them raw meat

Reintro: I'm now in my final year and preparing to defend! I'd revamp this to: patterns of specificity in coral-algal mutualisms, and then what that means for their ecology and evolution. A lot of my work has since taken a turn into octocoral symbionts, plus some work in other Cnidarians 🧪 (🪸📷⬇️)

Thank you so much! And for the repost.

A Lego orrery!

We were seeing a 98% drop in exposure over on Twitter. The censorship was so extreme we thought it best to start over somewhere else. We chose Bluesky. Help us gain our following back Follow Retweet Repeat Join the park side @altyellonatpark.org

Thanks to @ymalhi.bsky.social for this alert to good climate news: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Ecology lecturer wins Moth Nature Writing Prize The Moth Nature Writing Prize 2024, judged anonymously by Cal Flyn, has been awarded to British writer, researcher and naturalist, Anna Selby, for her poem, Acairseid Mhòr, Gometra www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

If #WorldSoilDay left you wanting more, this video encourages viewers to appreciate the natural world, highlighting how everything, from worms to flowers, shapes our ecosystem. Designed to inspire, it educates schools & the wider public on environmental interconnectivity. @ecioxford.bsky.social

Perverse... An online magazine that adds a healthy tang of strangeness to the poetry culture, inviting writers to contribute things we find ourselves surprised by, even as we write.

Such beautiful, interesting books!

What a fucking book. No prison can contain it.

“Pesticides that harm bees were found in the majority of English waterways tested in the last year” - Pesticides that are banned in the EU but allowed in the UK due to our Brexit ‘freedoms’ 🤔 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🧵 Launched today! A Woodland Trust report explores how the Gvt should fund #NatureRecovery in England, focusing on the role of new nature markets, risks, & opportunities, highlighting the vital role of the public sector in driving change. @ecioxford.bsky.social www.naturerecovery.ox.ac.uk?p=2274

Excellent soil biology explanation unfolds from this QR code:

‘#Naturalhistory #GCSE on hold as qualification seen as ‘Tory initiative’, claims campaigner’ - as if engaging children with the wonder of their world is to do with petty politics.

Good news for nature recovery in Northumberland: