This Is Just To Say
I have turned off
the AI features
that were in
the update
and which
you were probably
hoping
to monetize
Fuck you
they were stupid
so unnecessary
and so annoying
TONIGHT! My online workshop on how to add more habitat for invertebrates to your garden.
Deadwood! Nooks & Crannies! Lots Of Things To Do With Piles Of Sticks! Bee hotels that actually work (and sarcasm about those that don't).
7.30pm UK time :)
learn.wildlifegardenproject.com/talks/microh...
It's very grim :(
SO MUCH.
Next week I'm giving a talk with the #WildlifeGarden Project, on how you can add more habitat complexity to your garden, to encourage and support all sorts of invertebrates!
I'll also get cross about Terrible Bee Hotels.
Booking link here: learn.wildlifegardenproject.com/talks/microh...
Guess who forgot her Bluesky login for just long enough that I also forgot the entire thing existed.
Oops.
I love this beetles; they move like rubber clockwork.
A wooden block bee hotel, with drilled holes. Most of the holes have mud caps, many broken open. A bee with a pale fluffy face and big dark eyes is sticking his head out of the break in one cap, and another bee if the same species (with visible bright orange abdomen) has his own head so close to the entrance it look like they are kissing. Heart sticker emojis and a pink caption of 'smooch?' has been arranged around them.
A wooden block bee hotel, with drilled holes. Most of the holes have mud caps, many broken open. A male Osmia cornuta bee is sitting on the front just below a mud cap with a crack in it. He has a pale face, dark thorax and orange abdomen. He has his front feet on the head of another male trying to emerge from the cracked mud cap, as if pushing him back inside. It is captioned "nope" "feet on face" and "bro why?".
Love at the bee hotel? 💞🐝
No; just over-enthusiastic males checking out the new emergence!
(I realised these are actually two different holes, but it's representative of the Absolute Scenes at the bee hotel yesterday 😆)
#beehotels #wildlifegardening
Three realistic fake insect larvae on a white background. A brown dragonfly nymph, a green (glittery) diving beetle larvae, and a stonefly nymph.
The fake dragonfly nymph next to a real shed skin (missing a few legs), to show how good a model it is.
Close up of the stonefly larvae. A brown slightly flattened insect.
Close up of the diving beetle larvae. This one is very realistic in shape, but is cast in transparent green silicone with glitter.
Extremely pleased with this new weird addition to my ento #scicomm kit. Realistic aquatic insect larvae - silicone fishing lures! Gonna make 'em little magnifying pots or petri dishes.
(Company is called FishUp)
(I am delighted)
(They smell odd, presumably to be delicious for fish)
A blank and white cat curled up on green bedding with colourful beetle prints.
A round cat on freshly duvet'd bed.
M: "Which slides are you taking along this weekend?"
Me: "Minibeast Mythbusting. There's plenty of variety, and it's a family event."
M: "Didn't you have a weird bug history one?"
Me: "....yes, but it involves biochemical warfare / crimes; animal trials; & 4 Horsemen: Bug Edition."
A Normal Career.
photos from an excellent study by Cohen et al (2021) of a cerambycid beetle just straight up doing it with the flower of Disa forficaria, in a classic example of a ~sexual mimicry pollination system~
the humiliation of going on a hot date then finding out she wasn't even in the same PHYLUM (then someone writes a whole paper about it, with photos of your wiener)
Timely — just saw this post yesterday. Haven’t explored it yet myself, but it looks promising! bsky.app/profile/sara...
Macro photo of a brown stink bug in face view on a leaf, guarding a tightly-clustered bunch of eggs that are shaped and colored exactly like a full tray of dark beer with foam on top.
Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.
Pyramid is fungus?
(what in the WH40K is this 😆)
Oh dear. Making an 'Identify Your Minibeast!' flow chart (cos I want a BIG one for kids to follow through on sites), and it's all gone very GrApH1C De5IGn Is My PAssiON 😅
Make and try out the draft version, Linda. Then get someone with art skills beyond Powerpoint Fiddlin' to make it nice...
Green metallic insect hiding inside a drilled hole in a wooden block.
Shieldbug chillin' out in a part-used #beehotel tube. (Birch shieldbug? I think.)
A creature actually using a bee hotel as a *hotel*?! :P
At the 'Women in Warhammer' meetup at Warhammer world.
Have immediately spent 20 solid minutes talking about How Bees Work 😅
Continues my traditional of discussing entomology at Warhammer events, and Warhammer at the @royentsoc.bsky.social conference 🐝🪰🕷
It is agonnnnnnny D:
Oh, cool!
Scandalous! 🍿
6 bad doodles with text under each one. horseshoe crab is literally the animal horseshoe crab. shoehorse crab is a crab riding a shoe, cowboy style. crabshoe horse is a horse wearing literal crabs as shoes. shoecrab horse is a horse telling a crab to go away. crabhorse shoe is a pair of shoes, left one crab shaped, right one horse shaped. horsecrab shoe is literally the same pair of shoes, flipped.
#InvertebrateShitposting as per @joabaldwin.com's request
You can also buy 3D printing molds that will let you injection mold your own fake nymphs, but they're not from the same company and are not as good. If I had a 3d printer that could do food safe resin though, I would ABSOLUTELY be getting these.
cults3d.com/en/3d-model/...
Today's 'I'm not sure how I ended up here, but that's cool / useful' - discovering you can buy really realistic dragonfly / stonefly nymphs for flyfishing. Have ordered some to see if they'll work for outreach.
Expect my google recs to be Fishy for a while...
(fishuplures.com/en/products/)
I think it is liveness check (had to do one for a DBS check recently); it's such an oddly ominous term! 'Checking you're not using a wax model of someone else's face' is probably a bit long.
Title: A Valentine’s Day experiment In an effort to test the efficacy of cupids arrows of desire. A placebo group is shot with regular arrows. Their injuries range from moderate to sever. Unexpectedly, romances struck up in hospital and lawyers’ waiting rooms create a "romance ratio" similar to that of magic arrows. However, once the cost of compensation claims is factored in, it is decided to discontinue.
A Valentine’s Day cartoon for @newscientist.com
Why use iRecord for wildlife sightings? 🐞
Built for the UK, it links records to national schemes, LERCs & the NBN Atlas—so your data supports real conservation & research.
New or rusty? Join our iRecord 101 online course on 2 Apr.
Sign up: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1734876575...
@ukceh.bsky.social
Winter active bumblebees info: www.bumblebeeconservation.org/winter-activ...
I've popped the record into iRecord.
A slightly blurry bumblebee visiting a bright pink camelia flower, against a very blue sky.
Two ladybirds next to each other in the groove of a wooden post. The larger is a cream streaked ladybird, the smaller is a two spot ladybird.
A rare sunny day in Nottingham today, and some bugs were about! First bumblebee of the year (a surpisingly early one, though B.terrestris is known to be winter active; I used to see them quite a lot in London). 2 ladybirds chillin' on a post in Wollo Park in the sunshine.
Slightly mental Powerpoint shenanigans >>>>> AI