Natural England failing to protect valuable sites. Our report for @wildjustice.bsky.social shows that nearly 2/3 of sites waiting to be designated as SSSIs were under threat from development. One site in Thurrock will be directly destroyed. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
The "if you are sceptical about LLMs then you must hate disabled people" argument is really starting to piss me off.
Advice for @erc.europa.eu :
Prohibit the use of LLMs for grant writing. Let applicants sign a declaration that they have not used such systems and that the text is written by them and them alone.
Ash heaps, Thorpe Marsh Power Station, South Yorkshire, April 2025.
Join us on Tuesday for Habitation: poems on the theme of land/class/nature with Angelina D’Roza, Steve Ely, Pete Green, Rob Hindle, Chris Jones, Fay Musselwhite.
Tue 21 April
The Harlequin, 108 Nursery St, Sheffield, S3 8GG
Free entry, all welcome. Book here:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/habitation...
In honour of today’s brutal pollen count, I present to you ‘Hayfever’ by the Trashcan Sinatras: classic 90s indie pop. Now for some fexofenidine…
youtu.be/QsXve7Ezu_0
If you're free on the 9th or 23rd May, join us for a walk along the canal to listen out for bubbling Curlew, drumming Snipe, calling Cuckoos & reeling Grasshopper Warblers, with the sight of Spotted Flycatchers also a possibility. Booking details below (numbers limited) @yorkbirding.bsky.social
White cuckoo flower against blurry green grass.
Blue sky. Pale brown reeds surrounding water. Rough green grass in foreground.
Quick trip to St Aidan’s before taking my son to football. (Sadly his team got tonked in a cup final.) The birding had more highlights, including first of year sand martin, reed and sedge warbler, and blackwit. Best was a jack snipe, which popped up long enough for me to clinch the ID.
One of your best Dave!
sandmartin colony, right on the edge of pasture - holes mined into the red land on a sea-eroded soilface - similes of bats, fish, insects as they swarm, but nothing could be more hirundine than those movements in 3 dimensions, the cut of wing & aviator's visor, the zeeping calls, the purpose #birds
Sounds fantastic! I am visiting Minsmere for the first time this year. Was planning to go to Dunwich Heath too. But any other good heathland options in the area?
9th anniversary of the Grenfell fire is approaching. 72 people died, thousands more scarred.
Main causes remain unaddressed.
Lust for higher profits
Unaccountable corporate power
Performance related executive pay
Failure of regulators
Indifference of govts to the cry of the people
Nothing changed.
My children's wildlife books can all be ordered on this link.
We now have a new compilation edition just released which includes all 4 of our Seasons in the Wild titles for 4-8 year olds:
Winter Sleep
Busy Spring
Wild Summer
Autumn Feast
uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-...
For very many years, wayyy too much of our income was spent on rent. Well over half, for much of our kids childhoods. Son & gf currently looking to move from their damp, bug-infested flat. For more than 2/3rds of their income, they’ve been shown blatantly damp & mouldy flats, by impatient agents 1/3
Book Cover image of The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy
Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan are funding an app to attack journalists.
Getting smeared by "Objection AI" will become a badge of honor for reporters.
I'm glad to see them deepening their relationship just in time for my book, which exposes that very subject.
"The Nerd Reich" drops 8/18/26.
Looking out across trees and moorland on a grey murky morning. Heather close, then (mostly birch) trees with green leaves, then landscape on the other side of a narrow valley.
On holiday in Derbyshire. Nipped out first thing to investigate the local moor. Not a great haul of birds but delightful to hear so many willow warblers among the birch trees.
I know someone living on the northern edge of Leeds who is planning to send their son to grammar school in Halifax — the drive could be an hour plus each way. Madness!
Next week, come and write with me. It's FREE!
Me: what do you want to do while we are away?
Small daughter: go the swimming pool and the playground and the soft play and the mini golf
Me: anything else?
Small daughter [while grabbing my ear and in a demonic voice]: terrorise Daddy — AND I CAN DO THAT ANYTIME I WANT
Looking across a reservoir with small waves on surface. Green trees on distant bank. Blue sky with swirling clouds.
An hour’s birding early this morning at a cold and choppy Eccup Reservoir. Common scoter still present. 26 bird species, including 2 grey wagtails, a singing yellowhammer, and my first swallows of the year (who might have been wondering if it was worth the journey). Several hares also.
Nearly 1 in 6 UK species are threatened with extinction.
We've lost 97% of our wildflower meadows since the 1930s.
We have 73 million fewer birds than in the 1970s - a decline of almost a third.
And yet some politicians still just see wildlife as a blocker to progress.
Cheers!
Thank you!
🙏
Thank you -- it really does
Just had some potentially good news about a project that matters to me. Between health issues and the state of *everything*, I've been in the doldrums recently, so I am grateful.
If I've learnt anything as I get older, it's to cherish even the small wins: I will do so by cherishing a G&T later.
My view is that researchers who submit/publish papers with fake citations should face serious sanctions (which is not currently the case). Accurate documentation of sources is really the bare minimum when it comes to research integrity and academic practice.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
this would fix me
Oh oh — on the top deck of a UK bus when it’s 20 degrees outside. 🔥
Do you or one of your colleagues need an index created for a book in the humanities?
I make beautiful indexes (yes, such a thing does exist!)
I have space to take on 1-2 additional projects in April/May. Get in touch!
Similarly, Voyager 1 and 2 contain recorded messages of peace from UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim — who hid his Nazi past and complicity in war crimes.