Andy Aitken
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andykaitken.bsky.social
Andy Aitken
@andykaitken.bsky.social
810 followers 180 following 3K posts
Interested in everything from archaeology to zoology.
I love spending time with family, nature, reading, and watching documentaries and other TV.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Andy Aitken
skwinnicki.bsky.social
Lots of folks captioning aurora photos like "for a few minutes we didn't think about politics"

guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation
Basic light pollution diagram showing four different streetlight set ups ranging from more light pollution on the left to less light pollution on the right. The most pollution option, labelled "very bad" is a street lamp with a round uncovered bulb on top, making a sphere of light in the air. The next option, labelled "bad" has a tiny cap on top, that limits the upward pollution a bit. The "better" option is mostly uncovered on top, limiting pollution above the streetlight. The final option, labelled "best" has a full shroud overtop, limiting the light to only below the streetlight, where it is needed for pedestrians and vehicles.
November 13, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
womensartbluesky.bsky.social
Japanese paper artist Chie Hitotsuyama creates sculptures of animals using a technique involving rolled strips of wet newspaper #womensart
Life size sculpture resembling the upper part of a hippo emerging from water with mouth open showing tusk like teeth, presented in a studio
November 12, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
carlbovisnature.bsky.social
*Thread! 😀

Here are my brand new 2026 Birds calendars! 🐦❤️
This is the Double A4 version. 😊
You can buy it here;
www.carlbovis.com/product-page... 🐦
May 7, 2025 at 1:46 PM
andykaitken.bsky.social
Two giants fighting for all to witness.
rebeccarhelm.bsky.social Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · Sep 24
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
September 25, 2025 at 3:00 AM
andykaitken.bsky.social
Did you watch The Hack? I can't believe papers have gotten away with destroying lives for so long. That's why I've signed the petition, set up by Hugh Grant and other phone hacking victims, to demand fair, independent regulation. Join me: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/a-...
A Free Press, Not a Free Pass – It's Time for Fair Regulation
For too long, the UK press have bullied people, harassed grieving families, and destroyed lives, all to sell papers. We’ve all seen the heartbreaking consequences. They’ve hacked phones, listened to ...
you.38degrees.org.uk
September 24, 2025 at 8:28 PM
andykaitken.bsky.social
Going to and from Tesco's this morning, I saw all the usual suspects, Blackbird, Wood Pigeon, and Herring Gull.
I also spotted a male Blackcap and sat overlooking the shallow stream a Kingfisher.
@drrjwarren.bsky.social
@saocousins.bsky.social
@stevecobbin.bsky.social
Et al.
September 24, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
orkneylibrary.bsky.social
Today is #HobbitDay because both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born on September 22nd. Normally we'd shire a hobbit pun or two but it might just feel like a tolkien gesture and we don't want to embarrass our elves. Anyway come and boromir #Tolkien books.
A shelf of books by JRR Tolkien
September 22, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Reform is a (bad) mood and not a political party in the traditional sense.

Its followers don't care about facts. They care about their beliefs.

No amount of fact checking will work and their critics need to adjust to that.

You cannot defeat delusion with reason.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
Keir Starmer blasts Nigel Farage over 'unrealistic' plans that 'foster division'
Keir Starmer's press secretary said Nigel Farage had no interest in fixing the problems gripping Britain with its proposals to scrap the main route to British citizenship for migrants
www.mirror.co.uk
September 22, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
cstrawbridgeart.bsky.social
Fox sits in gold and brambles, as the crisp air draws near.
He breathes out, accepting this shift in the year.
Cold is returning, inviting him to retreat.
As the trees speak of change and the hope of release.
No need to hold tightly, just trust and know.
Autumn Equinox teaches the spirit to let go.
Fox sitting in a circle of gold, acorns, leaves and blackberries
September 22, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
indikon.bsky.social
Happy Sunday.
A mushroom growing in grass, viewed from ground level. Cherry tree bark, cracked, with lichen. A little lichen garden on a scrap of fallen bark. A conker peeping out from its green spiky case, on dead leaves.
September 21, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
jengolbeck.bsky.social
I found this birding book along the side of the road on the Tamiami trail in the Everglades on 8/25/25. It is so well loved with sightings going back decades. If you're a birder (I am not) please spread the word and hep me find the owner so they can be reunited
September 20, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
lbflyawayhome.bsky.social
“The swallows can be distinguished from the martins by their reddish-chestnut throats and foreheads, their beautiful steel-blue backs and wings, and their long, forked tails”
What to Look for in Autumn, 1960
Writer: EL Grant Watson
Artist : CF Tunnicliffe
September 21, 2025 at 7:23 AM
andykaitken.bsky.social
Sometimes, all they want is human contact.
Tea-towel is a long story concerning a different cat.

@cats.bsky.social @gingercats.bsky.social #gingerandwhitecats
#cats
Ginger and white car asleep with one front paw and head resting on humans arm. The photo only shows the head and shoulders of the cat.
September 20, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
davidho.bsky.social
This is amazing.
September 20, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
drrjwarren.bsky.social
#ArtDD3025
From Danna

After watching a sea otter slip quietly into the water from the rocks, I did this, listening to the gentle waves lapping in the otherwise immense silence.

@saocousins.bsky.social @holnicotenh.bsky.social @andykaitken.bsky.social @stevecobbin.bsky.social @indikon.bsky.social
Watercolour of sea with blue!Green hills rising up on horizon and think spurs of rock protruding into the sea on the left. A small grey house is at the back of the land on the left.
September 19, 2025 at 7:54 PM
andykaitken.bsky.social
The Maple Leafs smothered the Black Ferns in the first half of the Women's Rugby World Cup.

#mapleleafs #blackferns
September 19, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
drrjwarren.bsky.social
When they come for the comedians…
jonzoidberg.xyz JonZoidberg @jonzoidberg.xyz · Sep 18
Thought I'd leave this here.
Herr Goebbels Angered By Anti-Nazi Wit Comedians Banned For Humorous Remarks on Leaders RERLIN, Feb. 4 (U.P. When Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels yesterday he called it "society rabble and intellectual shobs," for laughing at comedians who make Nazi leaders the butts of their jokes. Goebbels turned his anger upon nouncing that five German actors had been banned from the stage for publicly rediculing Nazi party and state functionaries. He denied that there was any lack of humor in Nazi Germany, but said that it must be kept "good- natured, decent and clean." "There is plenty of humor in Germany, more than enough," he said in a three and one-half column editorial in the Nazi party's newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter. "But we do not per- mit ourselves to be ridiculed." ner Finck, actor-author; Pete Sachse, vaudevilie comedian, and Helmut Buth, Wilhelm Meissner and Manfred Dlugi, the latter three members of a vaudeville combination known as "The Three Rulands." The five were said to have been warned re- peatedly to stop making jokes about the Nazis.
September 18, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
sydesjokes.bsky.social
September 18, 2025 at 3:05 PM
andykaitken.bsky.social
Please sign the urgent petition to Keir Starmer - don't offer Donald Trump more giveaways to US Big Tech companies: www.foxglove.org.uk/campaigns/ke...
Keir Starmer - don't promise Trump more giveaways for US Big Tech
We the undersigned call on Keir Starmer to resist Trump’s pressure, and put the interests of the UK before those of US Big Tech.
www.foxglove.org.uk
September 18, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
realhanswiegel.bsky.social
Hoppa! ✊
September 17, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
lyse.bsky.social
Okay, I am having a wake and bake day but don’t things usually only get cheaper when there is more available?
adamisacson.com Adam Isacson @adamisacson.com · Sep 17
The Trump-Miller administration's single-minded focus on migration is starting to impact the availability of drugs in the US, according to this detail from a very good investigation @wsj.com published today.

www.wsj.com/world/americ...
Oseguera caught another break from the Trump administration. The president’s campaign to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally has taken federal agents away from drug-traffic interdiction. In Arizona, two Customs and Border Protection checkpoints along a main fentanyl-smuggling corridor from Mexico have been left unstaffed. Officers stationed there were sent to process detained migrants. A senior administration official said the U.S. border is more secure than it has ever been. Colombia is producing records amounts of cocaine, and the volume of the drug arriving in the U.S. is driving down prices, the people familiar with cartel operations said. Cocaine prices have fallen by nearly half to around $60 to $75 a gram compared with five years ago, said Morgan Godvin, a researcher with the community organization Drug Checking Los Angeles. “The price of pure cocaine has plummeted,” Godvin said.
September 17, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
drrjwarren.bsky.social
#ArtDD2025
Bin Day

All day I’ve been revelling in spectacular, immense landscapes - but just now it was these jolly bins that caught my eye😀

@saocousins.bsky.social @stevecobbin.bsky.social @holnicotenh.bsky.social @andykaitken.bsky.social @indikon.bsky.social @mayfieldbirder.bsky.social
Watercolour of a stone wall along a lane, with a row of blue, green and back wheelie bins against it.
September 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
saocousins.bsky.social
Little Ringed Plover
#ArtDD2025 #dailydrawing
A little quick doodle
#gold #bird
@drrjwarren.bsky.social @andykaitken.bsky.social @holnicotenh.bsky.social @stevecobbin.bsky.social
September 16, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
birdsofbahrain.bsky.social
#Bahrain #Birds Spur Winged Lapwing, one of the two adults that bred and raised three chicks this year. Last week, they were all seen together; This time, the two adults have regained their independence and are moving around without the kids in tow.
September 16, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Andy Aitken
gigialexander123.bsky.social
Got a love the Brits! I do. They had this blown up poster waiting for him on the lawn of Windsor Castle. Hell yeah. EPSTEIN EPSTEIN EPSTEIN!
September 16, 2025 at 12:55 PM