jlots

A stunning male 'Northern' Bullfinch in Lerwick on Friday. Up to five individuals have spent the winter in and around the town following the influx into Shetland during late Autumn 2025.

#BirdingScotland #UKbirding #UKWildlife #Birds

Knitted fabric consisting of narrow band of ribbing in yellow-orange with marled and solid squares in various combinations of blue, green and red yarns held together.

So much grief today, global and local. Soothing with listening, colour and small repetitive movements across the midline (aka knitting). Pattern: Warp by Sara Ottosson. Podcast: The Blind Spot Podcast www.YouTube.com/@BlindSpotPo...

An array of 9 purple discs on a blue background. Figure from Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt.

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue.

The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea.

From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt:
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

Veil Dance

Veil Dance https://www.wikiart.org/en/paul-klee/veil-dance-1920

Never forget that shutting down your local arms factory is infinitely more useful to the victims of war than voyeuristically consuming imagery of mutilation.

Here’s your reminder that we don’t have to believe lies, including what I call in my new book On Mindful Democracy “the biggest lie of all”: that some people are more deserving of life, liberty, and happiness than others because of their birth, or where they were born, or the color of their skin.

Beautiful. Thank you.

Three of the twelve Eurasian White-fronted Geese that flew over our house at Hillwell yesterday morning. Around 75 individuals have made landfall here in Shetland in the last couple of weeks.

#BirdingScotland #UKbirding #UKWildlife #Birds

The problem was never the kids... (or the parents, or over-diagnosis, or a snowflake generation)

If you're interested in an informed perspective on SEND by someone who parents SEND kids and works in a school, please read this brilliant post by my wife.

open.substack.com/pub/helenlou...

She quotes @samfr.bsky.social, whose political analysis is also compulsory open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...

How to be Truly Free Why mindfulness matters (and it’s not only for the reason you think)

Inner freedom is the ability to be less reactive, and more responsive, to life’s circumstances. Outer freedom is the ability to work together with others to change the circumstances themselves. It’s a communal practice built upon the foundation of inner freedom.

Learn more at this week’s Substack:

Back view of a red fox curled up in an overgrown garden.

A patch of periwinkles, a patch of sunlight. What more could an urban fox require for a springtime afternoon nap.

I can't stop thinking about the video I watched today from @joshwithparenthes.es.

I've written and read a lot about LLMs. There's so little room for contemplation and consideration in hype cycles, yet he managed to find the space.

Please, do yourself a favor and watch this. aeon.co/videos/ai-is...

“Andrew … the cows have come home.”

“Andrew … the cows have come home.”

Happy lunar new year to those who celebrate 🔥🐴

May you be happy, may you touch peace in your hearts, may you have good health

and may you find freedom that nothing can destroy and no one can take from you

Handwritten lyrics of “Heroes” (1977) composed on the right hand side of a sheet of graph paper with red lines. The following is the less than accurate automatic transcription: ornahing nahing wish you could swim ke the oblowns Va do chins con sWim Thoven now Just for one cay чрл, кол will be quee hugh nothina wildfive hen away Ne can be heroe one can ne can be us Just for one dau remember „ca remember Standiny by the wall the walt The guns cola bove our heads and we keathing aging fall Ld the srame was on the cherse not cuer onc.ever Hewe can be herees Sust for one hie day We can be herces XB Just for one day

We visited the V&A East Storehouse. Highlight, in the David Bowie archive, the lyrics to “Heroes”. Suddenly weeping.

A small figure climbs station stairs towards a large window.

A view of the opposite station platform across. A bright orange-red section of screen is reflected in irregularly shaped small puddles.

Lines at Hackney Wick station.

Bright blue sky and trees reflected in an extensive puddle from a few days of torrential rain. Mud on the tarmac from where the water has begun receding.

A shower of song from a wren. Morning walk.

A dusting of early blossom against a clear blue sky.

All this and birdsong too. Morning walk.

🙏 🙂 ❤️

Fascinating thread 🍫

50% rise in lekking Capercaillie at Abernethy over five years RSPB records 30 lekking male Capercaillie at Abernethy in 2025 - a 50% increase since 2020 - as new habitat techniques are trialled to help halt national decline

50% rise in lekking Capercaillie at Abernethy over five years www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/5...

To the tune of Summer is Icumen In

Voice almost as delicious as that of which it speaks.

Photo of a proto-cuneiform clay tablet against a white backdrop. The tablet is divided into several squares which each contain some pictographic signs. On the far left is one that looks like a jug on a stand

What an honour to speak at an event for the Earth Rover Program last week alongside some incredible people, almost none of whom seem to be on BlueSky except for @georgemonbiot.bsky.social

I spoke on soil health in ancient Mesopotamia, and here are some snippets of what I learned along the way

White blossom emerges from green buds.

Morning walk.

My fave from the 2026 Wildlife Photographer of the Year nominees: a small male broad-headed bark spider perched atop a large female, together looking like the face of some kind of forest creature. Photo by Artur Tomaszek. #SciArt #NaturePhotography #Pareidolia

A hand knitted axolotl stuffie in a pink shade with deep pink fluffy gills, photographed lying among the leaves of a jade plant.

I started designing an axolotl stuffie back in 2021, shelved it for a few years, then picked it up again last month. Now I have a prototype finished. It still needs a lot of tweaking. For such a simple looking creature it's not a simple pattern! Oh, & my jade plant is flowering. 🌱
🧶🐸🐡 #inverts #BSNM

Mantis spp in the genus Empusa, I believe

Four of my 'deep peace' paintings.
The animals are painted in watercolours.
The gold is Schmincke Aqua Bronze. This can be tricky to work with but really elevates everything.
Words from the Gaelic Blessing.

A stark, bare landscape of flat ground, ploughed field and stream under a grey sky is enlivened by detailed studies in the foreground of the plants and flowers of February

“February. Another cold, dead month, or so it seems. The elms are bare against the sky, the plough-ground is naked and wet, and still as brown as the sodden leaves.
Yet the world is waking up”.

Artists: Edith Hilder, Rowland Hilder (ShellGuide, 1955)