Sarah

Beautiful sad things at Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

A preserved carved turnip jack o'lantern from the 19th century

A preserved carved turnip jack o'lantern from the 19th century

A reminder that the original Hallowe'en jack o' lanterns date back to 18th century Ireland if not earlier, were based on a shady boozy blacksmith called Stingy Jack who cheated the devil & was trapped between 2 worlds, were carved from turnips and looked like this:

Feeling a strong desire to be somewhere where it smells like patchouli and cardamom do you know what I mean

Night Side of the River by Jeanette Winterson, and Weird Woods, edited by John Miller

Reading these alongside each other is an absolute joy, seeing how much how ghost stories have changed over the past 100 years or more, and yet there are some very obvious similarities too! I think I will always love Jeanette Winterson’s writing more than anyone else’s ❤️👻

The good guys of Insole Court

The Natural History Book of Rocks and Minerals: A Concisce Reference Guide by Chris and Helen Pellant

Was a bit concerned when my course started last week as it was about scale, and I felt very lost amongst the extremely large and desperately small numbers, but this week + the next three is all about rocks and that makes me very happy indeed 🥰

Can’t sleep. Tardigrades will get me.

A big ole pile of chip cherry

Four bright orange mushrooms clustered together on a woodland floor covered in autumn leaves, moss, and ferns

The same bright orange mushrooms dotted between healthy shoots

Tiny inkcap mushrooms clustered on a small stump, around eight

Two cute types of lads today at NT Dyffryn Gardens; the first is chip cherry (because they grow on woodchips), and the second is a lil cluster of inkcaps on what looked to be a tiny rotten stump

alba Lady Orchid

I quite liked this one.

Normal, but cool.

Oh, okay, across Britain and now I’m late!
I also couldn’t choose but what’s not to like about a Lady Orchid - it’s good in Kent and what a variety!
#WildflowerHour

I’ve had some pop up in my garden too this year ☺️

So beautiful! I love a star-shaped flower, and those veins make them look so intricate

Almost black in colour,

They are also quite good though (elder and hawthorn)

There are at Slimbridge btw, not native unfortunately! 😔 UK berries could never

I’ve seen some charities saying they only stay on there so no one can impersonate them.

The cover for a book called ‘How to Fall in Love with the Future’

Could do with a speck of hope 🤭

Tiny fuschia berries hang from a branch. They are little and numerous

Get a load of these gorgeous beautyberries

Brown mushrooms appear either side of a tree branch. They are jelly-like to the touch

Wood ears at Slimbridge to kick off the season 🍂🍄 I was worried it was going to be bad one because of how dry it’s been, but the heavens have opened significantly recently and everything is going to be so mushy #fungifriday

Wow this guy is gorgeous 😍

Illustration as described

Badger cubs, Eileen Soper.

Black text on a white background: Due to rising costs and more competition for funding, we are having to scale back our work. We’ve had to make painful decisions, including staff redundancies. With staff and resources stretched to their limit, we are now considering which vital projects may no longer be possible. This comes when bumblebees are struggling to recover following their worst year on record. I’ve never been more worried, or more determined to fight for a future for bumblebees. We need to raise £50,000 right away to make sure we can continue our vital work. If you’ve ever thought about giving a donation, we’re asking you to please, make it today. Thank you, We’re facing the hardest chapter in our history. Gill Perkins, CEO Bumblebee Conservation Trust

A message from our CEO.

Please, donate today: www.bumblebeeconservation.org/give

Miles & miles of maize
but 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 insect—in 2 days of 🚴‍♀️🚴in Brittany.

Maize is mainly 🐄 feed.

Linked to high pesticide use—and damaging soil erosion.

Governments must be honest about the hidden costs of meat.

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social warned about maize a decade ago 👇

Painted Lady butterfly basking on a concrete wall with a park and urban buildings behind

Our partners at Pesticide Action Network UK have uncovered that 354 tonnes of pesticides were sprayed in towns and cities in 2024.

We are in a #ButterflyEmergency, with long-term declines that need us all to take action to reduce the use of harmful chemicals, councils included.

A family of mature and very wiry collared parachute mushrooms grow from a blackened bit of decayed stick, held between two fingers in a green summer forest. All photos by me

Here are some nice mushrooms

And last but not least, this one I rescued from a quite deep box that she’d fallen into and was too tired to get back out again. She was very grateful for the food…picking them up with a flower the best thing to do if you find a bee that needs help, sugar water is only good if you can’t do that.

This is a male garden bumblebee - males have an extra bit of yellow on thier heads in the b&y/o species, and you can tell gardens from the others are they have a band around their ‘waist’

This is a very rare bee in the UK, but is in abundance at Newport Wetlands; the shrill carder bee. You can hear why when she flies away!

Next up is my personal favourite, the common carder bumblebee! This clip doesn’t show the colours very well but it does show a bit of interesting behaviour - some seem to ward you off like this, while others will bump into you or very slowly fly around you, as if trying to understand what you are!

This dizzy queen 😭 She is a white-tailed and as you can see from the way she flies away at the end, she’s actually a fairy

This one is a buff-tailed, they are the biggest and one of the earliest to rise. They have pretty short tongues unlike…