fletchpj @fletchpj@qoto.org

The names of some places ring with the echoes of birds of the past.

https://aeon.co/essays/british-place-names-resonate-with-the-song-of-missing-birds

Ulcombe, Ulgham, Outchester, Oldberrow, Ullenhall, Ullenwood, all derive from 'ule,' the Old English word for owl. These places were named after the owls that medieval people associated with the landscapes:

"The onomatopoeic potency of 'ule' implies not only how owls themselves materialised and existed as sound for our ancestors, but that this also affected how people experienced the places in which they heard these sounds. On some level, those places named after owls ... were identified as soundscapes as much as landscapes, imagined and responded to through sonic texture and colour. It was sound that reified and situated place."

A friend who is a historian sent me a link to this fascinating essay which reflects upon the symbolic role that birds and bird sounds played in the naming of English places before landscapes were altered by 19th century industrialization, as well as the traces that still linger after those landscapes have been transformed. I have owls on the mind this week.

#hauntology #history #owls #birding #birds

Battersea Power Station with added bath plug.

#Battersea #PowerStations #sculpture

I made a marquetry baby tapir! #Marquetry #Woodworking #Tapir #BabyTapir

Ilkley Moor trees. Foggy pines and lichens on rowan.

If it is not literally the warmest year ever, someone will complain that global warming has stopped.

Year-to-year fluctuations are a normal part of the ongoing global warming trend. Don't be distracted by the noise.

#GlobalWarming #ClimateChange

Finally finished the bottom of page 1 of my 2 page moth spread in my prairie nature journal. Yes, there are non-moths on this page but how could I resist a mantidfly? There are lots of cool insects that come to a black light besides moths...enjoy!
#mothing #moths #prairieart #naturejournal #watercolor #schulenbergprairie

The bird nest fungus is everywhere right now. I've found them in eight locations around the farm after twenty years of not finding any at all.

#moss #mosstodon #fungi #birdnestfungus

Walls have ears, they say... I wonder what these old stones have heard?

They line a wooded lane that rises to a village church, and I love the labour and love that went into them.

The herringbone style goes back to the Romans, but you still see them in SW England. Cornwall has the best-known, though these sandstone beauties - slowly being reclaimed by nature - are in Somerset's Quantock Hills.

#history #archaeology #landscape #ferns #Mosstodon #Somerset #Quantocks

A lonesome mushroom down in the dark woods
#NaturePhotography #wildlife #woodland #scotland #forest #wood #lake #loch #river #Highland
#Fungi #mushroom #wildflowers
#Insects #nature #photography #fungisunday #mastadonart

December sunset on the Isle of Skye.
This is a truly amazing place to watch the sun go down.
I could hear a curlew calling as he flew across the bay. The colours slowly faded as the sun disappeared behind the headland.
#sunset
#curlew
#birdsong
#isleofskye
#mindfulness
#nature
#photography
#scotland

A gluttonous female jumping spider (Opisthoncus nigrofemoratus) grabs new flies off a garden leaf before she's even finished eating her previous catches. That’s three flies in her mouth.

Romsey, Victoria, Australia.

#Salticidae #predators #spiders #JumpingSpiders #Australia #photography

Hawthorn seem to have the best growing habitat for moss and lichen, a whole mini landscape on this one twig #Mosstodon #lichensubscribe #lichen

Partridgeberry (Mitchella repens), upright coral fungus (Ramaria concolor), and ghost pipe (Monotropa uniflora). The first is an autotroph (photosynthetic), the second is saprophytic or mycorrhizal (it's a mystery, I gather), and the third is a myco-heterotroph that parasitizes fungi in the Russulaceae. Platte Clove Preserve, Tannersville, NY. #nature #moss #plants #parasite #photography #Catskills #fungus #fungi

💧Artist: #ERES125 in City: #Halle #StadHalle , Belgium 🇧🇪- Title: "Choises" (inspired by the Original Photo of Louwies) - #Streetart #Art #Mastoart #Mural #Graffiti #Artwork #Lake

What do Alfred Russel Wallace, his sister, and spirits have to do with the Museum?

This week was the 200th anniversary of Alfred Russel Wallace’s birth, the man who independently came up with the idea of evolution concurrently with Charles Darwin. But today also happens to be Friday the 13th!

#fridaythe13th #wallace #alfredrusselwallace #charlesdarwin #darwin #Evolution #archives

Black Trumpet #Mushrooms to herald #FungiFriday. Give me more of that funky horn! 🎺🎺🎺

#mushtodon #sporespondence #nature #naturephotography #macro

I hadn't noticed that the BBC had produced a new audio adaptation of Dickens's "The Signalman" for Christmas, but now I have, so you can, too. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001ghw9
—
#ghosts #horror #ghostStory

A fernery set up inside a greenhouse, in the Government Botanical Garden of #Ooty, India. #FensterFreitag #WindowFriday #Ferniverse #MastIndia @mastodonindians