Mark Avery
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markavery.bsky.social
Mark Avery
@markavery.bsky.social
6.8K followers 990 following 75K posts
Conservationist, campaigner, author, columnist, blogger, grandpa
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markavery.bsky.social
Christmas cards arriving - fewer each year as traditionalists decline in numbers.

Quite a lot of birds - do you get them too?

Will do a 12th Night review of wildlife (sensu lato) species. Camels count! Would love to see yours too.

Predict Robin victory.

#wildlifeonChristmascards
December 13, 2025 at 12:18 PM
markavery.bsky.social
Not favourite where I’ve looked 10/1 with Betfair. Dull golfers and dull F1 drivers often win.

www.theguardian.com/football/202...
‘We are more successful than they wanted us to be’: Chloe Kelly on team squabbles, scoring that penalty and surviving sport’s gender wars
Women’s football is booming – but the bigger it’s got, the messier it’s become for players. Through it all, the hot tip for Sports Personality of the Year has kept a cool head
www.theguardian.com
December 13, 2025 at 11:12 AM
markavery.bsky.social
Did you hear the Flow Country mentioned on Mastermind on Monday as a World Heritage site?

Here's a book that addresses that too, available from www.lulu.com/shop/colin-r...
December 12, 2025 at 12:45 PM
markavery.bsky.social
Glad to see this study of lead levels in children.
More info here markavery.info/2025/12/11/6...
Wonder what the blood lead levels in gamekeepers' kids are like?
December 12, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Mark Avery
lbflyawayhome.bsky.social
Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 8
‘Winter Farmyard’
Artist: Ronald Lampitt
On a snowy day, a small figure with his dog shines a torch as he walks past a snow-topped barn. This barn has strong echoes of ‘the repair shop’
December 8, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
bsbiscotland.bsky.social
Day 8 of my botanical #adventcalendar - Yellow Bird's-nest. This bizarre plant is a mycoheterotroph - it has no chlorophyll, so can't photosynthesis, and gets all its food from parasitising underground fungi!
In central Scotland it is found on mining bings - islands of biodiversity #wildflowerhour
Yellow Bird's-nest (Hypopitys monotropa), a bizarre looking mycoheterotroph. This plant has no chlorophyll, as evidenced by the photo - three stems of a pale, buff-yellow plant emerge from light green moss (Hypnum cupressiforme) and scattered leaf litter. Each stem is around 10 cm high, has translucent scales adpressed to it instead of regular leaves, and is topped by a drooping inflorescence consisting of around eight tubular flowers, each bell fused together with some irregular little teeth at the end. The whole plant is uniform in colour, with no distinction between the stem, scales or flowers. Behind, a young birch woodland filters sunlight.
December 8, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
ianparsons.bsky.social
"Historic return to London"? From that statement then you must have plenty of historical evidence they were in London previously. Can you share it with us, plenty would like to see it.
@alexanderlees.bsky.social @iancarter67.bsky.social @markavery.bsky.social
December 9, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
arnoldtortoise.bsky.social
A very handsome Echiniscus testudo Tardigrade found in lichen on a branch blown down in the winds in Alexandra Park, Hastings.

#UKWildlife #Tardigrade
view from above of an orange-brown Tardigrade. Its head end is to the right of picture, and its eight sets of claws are to either side of the body.
December 9, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
brigitstrawbridge.bsky.social
An old garden gate. One of many I come across on my walks - but this one stopped me in my tracks.

I wonder what treasures and adventures lie behind the gate, and beyond those steps? I think I might start paying more attention to old garden gates...

#gardens #gates
Old iron gate surrounded by ferns and lichen
December 9, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
sardonicus.eu
Bats and Umbrellas by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1882
illustration of two bats that appear to be swordfighting
December 9, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
lbflyawayhome.bsky.social
Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 9
‘Evening Snow’
Artist: SR Badmin
A view over a rural scene dotted with winter trees, as the early winter evening casts a grey sky orange yellow, illuminating hard frozen ploughed fields
December 9, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
graemelyons.bsky.social
1/2 #speciesaday no. 682 is Tomoxia bucephala. A Nationally Scarce saproxylic 'tumbling flower beetle'. Superficially like the much commoner Variimorda villosa, but a different pattern and more strongly associated with deadwood. I have recorded it between 2nd June and 10th July. Not annual for me.
December 9, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
just-jack-1.bsky.social
President Zelenskyy has rejected the Trump peace plan, submitted to him in its original Russian.
December 9, 2025 at 4:53 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
bsbiscotland.bsky.social
Finally, a fern! Day 10 of my botanical #adventcalendar is the delicate Alpine Lady-fern, a species of Scottish mountains that grows where the snow lies late, consequently declining linked to changing climate

I find the pattern of its fronds very restful, almost hypnotic to look at... #wildfernhour
The early morning sun rising over the Grey Corries mountain range picks out a clump of May-green coloured Alpine Lady's-fern (Athyrium distentifolium), its shuttlecock of fronds erect with a little downturn at the tip. Each frond is delicate and dissected, and on this plant the pinnules are down-turned at the edges. Behind, large blocks of pale quartzite dot the steep slope, turning to scree and crags as the corrie rises to the ridge crest. The sun is just topping the ridge, making an optical illusion as if shining through a semi-circular hole in the ridge, and its refraction on the camera lens forms a faint rainbow above the fern Looking down on a clump of Alpine Lady-fern, growing out of Woolly Fringe-moss (Racomitrium lanuginosum) at the base of a quartzite cliff. The elegant fronds are spreading, showing off their delicate dissection and yellow-green colour against the greys of the rock and moss.
December 10, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
tomcadwallender.bsky.social
Tree Sparrow in our garden on the Northumberland coast. Numbers are well down in our garden this year compared to previous winters. @btobirds.bsky.social #nebirding
December 10, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
chrisvanswaay.bsky.social
Losses of specialist and expansion of thermophilic generalist macro-moths in nature reserves of Central Europe: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Losses of specialist and expansion of thermophilic generalist macro-moths in nature reserves of Central Europe
Ongoing environmental change has caused significant modifications in the diversity, abundance and community composition of insects across Central Euro…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 11, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
enmarchant.bsky.social
Today, December 12 is International Iberian Lynx Day. A good day to celebrate the recovery of the species. In 'Critical danger of Extinction' 25 years ago, there are now over 2400 Iberian #Lynx. #rewilding
fbiodiversidad.bsky.social Fundación Biodiversidad @fbiodiversidad.bsky.social · 17d
La población de lince ibérico 🐈 aumentó un 19% en 2024, reflejo de dos décadas de recuperación gracias a la cría en cautividad, la restauración de hábitats y la reducción de amenazas como el furtivismo y los atropellos 💚

#DíaMundialdelLinceIbérico
December 12, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reposted by Mark Avery
selseybirder.bsky.social
Snow Bunting at East Head (found by Tom Snow)
December 12, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Reposted by Mark Avery
debbietann.bsky.social
Bulldozing nature policy won’t rebuild Britain.

My latest blog on the continued attack on nature from this misguided Labour government and why they are listening to the wrong advisors.

www.hiwwt.org.uk/blog/debbie-...
Bulldozing nature policy won’t rebuild Britain | Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust
This should have been the year we turned the tide for nature. Instead, the Government appears poised to preside over the worst environmental rollback in decades.
www.hiwwt.org.uk
December 12, 2025 at 12:17 PM
markavery.bsky.social
50th guest blog dismembering the case for a giant windfarm between #Haworth and #Hebden Bridge.

Latest: markavery.info/2025/12/10/g...
The series: markavery.info/blog/archive...

#peat #plath #bronte #wuthering #floods #turbines #climate

Wonderful Nick Mackinnon & friends return in new year.
December 10, 2025 at 9:57 AM
markavery.bsky.social
Walshaw Moor on film… www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
Margot Robbie in red latex, Kate Bush impersonators and a pint of Emily ale: my crash course in Brontëmania
As Wuthering Heights gets a raunchy Hollywood remake, our writer takes a pilgrimage through Haworth, the village where its author lived – and finds her spirit still electrifying the cobbled streets an...
www.theguardian.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:47 AM
markavery.bsky.social
Just been listening to a Mistle Thrush as I waited for the 10:27 into London at Wellingborough station. So scarce these days that it took a moment to realise what it was.
December 8, 2025 at 10:31 AM
markavery.bsky.social
Blowy mild night in Northants and a Light Brown Apple, an appropriate December moth and, more of a surprise, this Silver Y to enjoy this morning. #TeamMoth
December 8, 2025 at 8:30 AM
markavery.bsky.social
Hardly a nature book to be seen there.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
The best science and nature books of 2025
From the threat of superintelligent AI to the dangers of overdiagnosis; plus the evolution of language and the restless genius of Francis Crick
www.theguardian.com
December 8, 2025 at 8:27 AM
markavery.bsky.social
Have read this several times. A good man and a good journalist.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘I have watched politicians failing yet and yet again’: lessons from a life as an environment writer
Paul Brown looks back at his career reporting on the climate crisis, failed summit and nuclear power – and how to do it well
www.theguardian.com
December 8, 2025 at 8:25 AM