Whoop, whoop! 🥳 My book has just been sent to the printers! It also features in @yalebooks.bsky.social's Autumn Catalogue, in some very illustrious company . . . #excited All shares and preorders much appreciated! 🙏 yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... #booksky #queer #lgbtq #queerhistory #histsci 🌈📚🗃️

Bogbean. Truly lovely plant that deserves to be better known. @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

If you see this, post a Star Trek [gif, presumably. Otherwise gonna need a bigger character limit]

Neverwhere The Crow Road Cahokia Jazz

Unexpected punk damselfly.

Damselflies! I haven't seen them for a few days, due to the rain, but they're clearly taking advantage of a break in the weather.

Tiny frog! One of last year's, I suppose. It's always nice to see them back.

The rising 'children need to get used to being uncomfortable' anti-neurodiversity discourse is at once evidence of improved visibility & understanding (which always provokes dissent), & also lazy, pathologically incurious, harmful propaganda, mostly not from frontline teachers, pushed by the media.

Family history. These are marrow spoons, for scooping the marrow out of bones. Yum. They belonged to my great-grandparents (born in 1883 and 1885).

There is something gloriously pleasurable in watching newts and tadpoles on a warm, sunny day, when you're very definitely supposed to be doing something else.

Wolf spider investigating a pond lily leaf, then going for a run across the water. I love watching them do that. @britishspiders.bsky.social

Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

Absolutely no idea, either of them.

My children’s book Jacob’s Transition Goals comes out in 3 DAYS!! And you can pre-order here from Gay’s The Word if you’d like to support a queer bookshop 👇 www.gaystheword.co.uk/product-page...

1. In a landmark ruling, the Montana Supreme Court has declared that the constitution, one of the most progressive in the nation, entirely protects transgender people. The ruling is even insulated from SCOTUS decisions, due to how state constitutions work. Subscribe to support our journalism.

Absolute doofus of a tadpole.

Managed to read this as Kenny Everett. It's definitely Monday.

It is spring, it is warm. And thus 'tis the season of incompetent bee fly photography. Hurrah! Also got visited yesterday by a peacock butterfly, enjoying a sunbathe.

Just had a wander around the garden. Saw seven frogs, so that was quite cheering.

Made me start singing Dugga Doo, so now everybody has got to have the earworm too. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmUx...

I don't know. Maybe they're entering for Drag Race?

It looks as though somebody has been covering the tadpoles with glitter.

If you see this drop a hero with a sword.

I am absolutely not thinking about eating tadpoles.

Tadpoles growing well. The first to hatch are about three weeks old now, which is still too early for legs, but there are other changes. The speckled appearance of their skin is increasingly apparent, and I don't think there are any external gills visible now.

Post a GIF of who you wanted to be as a kid.

Not nearly so many visible gills now.

Please enjoy this sunbathing tadpole, rolling over so that you can rub its tummy.

Incredible size differences here. You can see that some of the bigger ones no longer have visible gills, so obviously they've been hatched for longer, but some of them always seem much bigger from the start. In the second shot, one is thoughtfully doing the backstroke for illustrative purposes.

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Hello.

If you see this, post a robot.

Swimming is not easy to begin with.

Wriggle wriggle.

Today the sun returned for a few hours, which was just what the frogspawn needed. We have achieved tadpole cuddle puddle! Lots of tadpoles gathered together in conglomerations, prior to taking the big leap to going solo. Look at their little feathery gills! They're in their cute axolotl phase. :)

Very bad film of some unhatched tadpoles wriggling. For complicated lighting reasons, I couldn't film under the water, so had to shoot through the reflection of a large plant pot saucer. Sorry about the wobbles, and just about everything else too.

Tadpole update! They're looking very tadpoley now. None of them are free of the jelly yet, but you can see eyes and gills on a few, and some of them have started to wriggle!

Quote with four things you are currently watching.

Frog Pavarotti.

Very much enjoying the colour variation here. (Don't mind me, I'm basically just shooting frog porn at this point.)

Fourteen frogs! Fourteen! (Not all illustrated here.) #SpawnWatch

Frogs frogs frogs.

The pondful of frogs last week gave up when temperatures plummeted. Now it's warm and sunny, and my pond is basically an orgy. Hurrah!

The Frog Chorus is currently performing an opera in the garden. It is glorious. Sometimes it's very hard to be a good and responsible pond owner, giving wildlife its space, when I very much want to be out there with my nose an inch from the surface. #SpawnWatch countdown begins now.

I JUST SAW A NEWT!! I've not been pond-watching much recently, partly so as not to disturb frogspawning, and partly because of the dire weather, but I had to go past it, and timed it just right to see a newt grab a breath. All is right with the world when there are newts. Well, nearly all.

Post a banger not in English www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XA2...

My first book, Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life, will be published by Yale University Press on 11 August (UK) and 8 September (US). Please help spread the word! 🙏 UK: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300... @yalebooks.bsky.social 🏳️‍🌈📚🐵 US: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... @yalepress.bsky.social 🏳️‍⚧️ 🗃️🦋

Share a bird photo you've taken. The photo you want, vs the one you usually get!

y’all wanna see some ice-on-ice violence? 🥰