We're crouching down at the very edge of the canal. Put out your hand to the right. You can feel the night-cold metal of armco, that lines the bank here. Gently reach out. Feel the delicate brush of bell shaped flowers dripping like suspended rain drops from perfectly arched stems. Listen. The sound of pigeon and magpie lifted by blackbird, robin and thrush. Breath deeply. The scent of still water, wet earth and, if your sense of smell is acute, the hint of honeyed wine of hawthorn blossom that is just bursting around us.

Canal-side Plants

Bluebell

And along the towpath
The bells are peeling,
Ringing in a new day
That hangs breathless
On the still and waiting air.
A carillon of old music
And even older hope.

#naturepoetry #ukcanals #plants #spring #naturewriting

Stanley Spencer recorded in his 1938 Desk Diary that he began 'Magnolias,' in March of that year. On 5th April 1938, he wrote to his dealer Dudley Tooth saying that the painting was 'as good as anything I have done.'

Turner was the first ‘modern’ painter; who directly inspired the impressionism of the 19thC and presaged the abstract expressionism of the 20thC. 'Evening Star,' (1830) is all the proof you need.

'Bacchanalian Scene.' (1862) In July the Royal Academy is holding the first major retrospective of the Victorian artist Richard Dadd in over fifty years; the show will bring together around 100 oil paintings, watercolours and drawings.

'An East Anglian Landscape.' (c1971) In the early 1950s, Denis Wirth Miller settled in the Essex town of Wivenhoe - he considered the ship-building and fishing town a perfect retreat for his work and began to skillfully capture the austere, beautiful Essex flatlands on canvas.

Update: so far so good! #UKBirding

Great Spotted Wash & Brushup.
The #woodpecker was drumming from first light - he's excavating a new nest cavity in the old Oak, which must be dirty work.
He arrived here at dawn & although grubby perhaps decided that the water was still too cold for the full monty.
🦉🌿
@brigitstrawbridge.bsky.social

The Marsh Marigolds at the #weedypond are now in full Sun Worship mode.
They started to come into flower in mid-Feb & they looked rather forlorn then.
There's a busy metropolis undeath their leaves which is full of invertebrates - "Downtown" for the Wrens...
@bsbibotany.bsky.social
#PetulaClark 🌿

Greetings from the garden

Process video for the witch hare linocut illustration I posted last week.

I don’t post as many linocut process videos these days but @martinnutbeem.bsky.social reminded me some people still enjoy them.

Spiderwort.

Reading now.

Gorgeous!!!! 🌷

#TulipTuesday nothing more to add. ♥️

1//2 Spend a minute by the #weedypond and admire the pure beauty of this male Chaffinch, in peak breeding condition.
Green, Gold & Chaff finches are all holding up very well here and all are currently nesting hearabouts.
@bto-gbw.bsky.social
#birds #nature #ponds 🦉

The #BirdOfTheDay is #Robins
Here we are up close and personal with a Robin who has something on it's mind. Any ideas?...
@robcrank68.bsky.social
@alan678.bsky.social
@rspb.bsky.social
#ForJanet #birds #photography #ECK #birdphotography #BirdLife

Hi #PortfolioDay 💞
l'm Lich, digital and watercolor artist. I love creating an atmosphere of calm with a touch of anxiety, nature backgrounds and graceful characters. I specialize in book and comic book illustration and character design

More inform ✨ lichjuliorra.carrd.co ✨

#ukrart #украрт

Sadness and disappointment are not mental health issues.

I have this book and I'll read on it tonight. I so enjoy her books. I just bought this series in mass paperback since they are going extinct.

HATE WILL NOT WIN, but it takes work!

“Color has got me. I no longer need to chase after it. It has got me for ever. I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour.”
― Paul Klee

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” 💛🌳🍃
― Henry David Thoreau

🎨 Tree roots and Tree trunks, Van Gogh

Cover of Seasons of Glass and Iron, featuring a rabbit chasing what appears to be either a wolf or a fox, whose front half has disappeared into a portal of sky in an impossible shape, all against a pastoral landscape.

What a gem @amalelmohtar.com’s new collection, Seasons of Glass and Iron is! In 200 pages, you get everything from fairytales to poetry to lyrical science fiction, all done with El-Mohtar’s deft ear for language. Savor them— they’re easy to burn through in one sitting. #Booksky

Illustration featuring a comet about to land on a rocky landscape as two hippo like creatures watch from the right

After living through the Nazi & atomic bomb eras, Tove Jansson writings would often encompass fearful ideas about loss of a familiar world. However she would balance this with characters who displayed kindness & community, showing goodness even in the darkest times
#BookArtWeek

The crystal clear River Allen with April birdsong.
@leanahosea.bsky.social
#Dorset #Chalkstreams #FarfromtheMaddingTrump

Wild Garlic and Bluebells yesterday, in an ancient woodland on the Dorset/Wiltshire border.
@bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Wonderful to hear the Redstart calling this morning but I stupidly fell over while looking up to find it 🙄 It has a very distinctive call but I didn’t catch it all here! #ukbirding

What a great book! But I have had a couple of existential crises reading it. Laughing. 😱 I mean, humans are just passing through. Life will go on. What you really understand is how indifferent Nature is. Oh, well. I am having fun.

The Great Tolkien Reread: A Knife in the Dark, Flight to the Ford "Ringwraith" by Anato Finnstark Immediately, though everything else remained as before, dim and dark, the shapes became terribly clear. He w...

The Great Tolkien Reread wraps up Book One of FOTR today with a double-chapter post. Discussing "A Knife in the Dark" and "Flight to the Ford", this grab-bag post touches on poetry, shifting narrative viewpoints, and the book's uneasy racial politics. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-...