Chris Raper

Really nice sighting ... I used to see T.ursina at Warburg NR and around the south Chilterns but I haven't seen them in years. Gonia picea seems to be doing well though.

I think he's saying ... come on ... beak is empty ... need chips, or fat-balls :)

Populists always tell gullible people what they want to hear, so they can steal everything for themselves

I love mine - really comfortable to use and the nib is very well finished. I know some people knock them as being "too big" but it seems comparable in size to the Namiki Emperor and I didn't see anyone laughing at those or saying they were too extreme.

I never tried an Aero but they are very popular - what puts me off is that they are vying with the new Sheaffer Legacy to be the most expensive steel-nibbed pen on the market. A gold-nibbed one would be interesting though.

Diplomat do seem to make pretty consistent pens - very nice writers

If you're going to do something that might be unwise then "go big, or go home". Make sure you really enjoy it because to only go in half-hearted leaves you feeling like it was a bad idea AND it didn't give great results.

Very nice! :) The P139 is also really nice, with a slightly soft nib

Saw my first this week on a neighbour's Aubretia! :D

My suburban garden in the Thames Valley probably isn't a great comparison to yours anyway but a neighbour is reporting the usual species for here. No pugs but that might be normal for here.

Gonia picea is about the earliest tach here and lovely to see - yesterday I wondered if I should go to m=y nearest location for them and check, but I'm still wiped out with COVID so decided against :) ... still not really happy with the English names for tachinids as they just confuse

Had a nice pair of blackbirds in the garden this week, looking for nesting spots - sad that we should be commenting on what was a very common bird but they almost vanished in my garden in the last few years

Blimey! 17 species already?! Does this bode well for a bumper Spring or are we just on track for normal?

Sadly Starmer seems to be that guy who walks into a room and nobody notices. So weak that he has to block anyone who might stand against him and who is scared to pick a side until he has asked every focus group which way they'd like him to react.

It genuinely doesn't surprise me ... very little does now about him. A man with the power to have anything but without the wit to know when not to ask.

I think it just illustrates what you get when the Commander in Chief demands they retrofit a golfing hotel as a Command and Control facility, because he doesn't want to miss out on a few rounds every day.

I keep saying I'm writing a book but it's always a work in progress 🤣😂

And again the media concentrate on the offensive nature of his words, rather than just calling him out on spreading outright lies ... he was wrong and he should be called out on that and be forced to admit it

Great news - just ordered mine :)

Hi James - they apparently had technical difficulties last year which prevented it but they are preparing an update right now. I've been sending them copies for testing/import so I'm hoping it happens fairly soon. It's not under my control though and we all depend on them to do the imports :)

Very nice - I'll add that now to the UKSI :)

Honestly, fountain pen collectors are usually some of the nicest people you could meet. That rules out JDV completely.

Yeah, just too wet and windy for much to be on the wing recently

Just spotted a Winrer moth on the window down here in west Dorset :)

Nobody ever bought a PC because they needed Clip-it ... AI is a good tool but the IT companies are so far up their own hype that they're embarrassing themselves. It's almost like they are desperate to justify the $billions they spent on it to their shareholders.

Trump just hears "oil" but doesn't understand that Venezuelan oil takes a lot more refining to get petrol and in fact is better suited to bitumen production.

This effect would be a lot harder to detect, I suspect, if we had a predominance of good pollinator friendly habitats in the countryside, rather than the terrible impoverishment we are suffering from. The core problem is habitats but in light of that we need to prevent further damage by honeybees.

I always equate honeybee promotion as like suggesting the release of chickens and pheasants into the countryside "to help the birds". It's possibly a little rhetorical and unfair but the financial and agricultural power of the beekeeping lobby has hijacked the campaign to protect pollinators.

When that trackle-down starts to happen we'll all be quids in 🤣😂 but yeah this can't go on

This is what I hate about Starmer - he behaves like he needs to consult a "focus group" or canvas Red Wall voters before he says or does anything these days. Good that he is sticking up for Denmark but hardly a statement that's going to carry any ramifications.