Janet Drew

A magellanic penguin seen on the Valdes Peninsula, Patagonia (Argentina). It is stood with wings open, right next to a parking lot: at the bottom of the photo, the cast-iron bar separating it from the sandy ground the penguin was stood on. It seemed completely ease despite the tourists (including us) within just a few feet. Along with his compadres, this individual had just waddled up from the water's edge below, with the immediate goal of simply getting into the sunshine. The real reason they were there - to scout out nesting sites on the slope down to the water. Apparently the boys show up before the girls, each breeding season, to do this.

A magellanic penguin: both #blackandwhite and #wingsopenbutnotflying ...in a manner of speaking! For today's #birdoftheday and #birds. To my eye, not the prettiest of penguins, but they still have ALL the winning, ungainly charm on land, you expect of this bird group. #nature

@thebuell.bsky.social gives me an idea... How about printing on bank notes the animals/birds our monarch and his family like to hunt/shoot? (As a daily reminder of who our royal family are.)

Lanchester goes on to give polling evidence with numbers. The effect is real and so excrutiating and maddening.

There's a really good piece on the (UK's) intergenerational gap by John Lanchester in today's Guardian.I've grabbed a bit of the text that is, for me, a source of continuing pain...
www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

A patagonian sierra finch, facing right. It has a typical short finch-style beak, with darker feathers around the eye blending into a grey head. It has a khaki/green collar, and a light warm brown back, edged with more khaki/green. The wings and tail are grey mainly, and the tummy below is yellow. A white rump is just visible. The feet are pink. The bird is stood on a bench - off picture there is a bit of bread left by a visitor that it is summoning up the courage to seize. The out-of-focus weird light blue background is the Perito Moreno glacier.

#Sideview of a patagonian sierra finch (...great name!) which also has a #yellow tummy. For today's #birdoftheday.

It might be. I've been seeing one on my feeder recently. Distinctive dark cap, with buff bib - and a bit spherical! (A borb...). Cream wing markings like adult. Nice photo.

A group of 6 fulmars gliding/flying low over the north Atlantic. Five of the birds have their wings in a horizontal glide, with only one actively flying. The sea beneath, a steely blue-grey, is being rucked up by the wind. The photo was taken from the deck of the Fram (Hurtigruten) in 2017.

Fulmars are gliders par excellence. Here are 6 of them (with only one actively flying) low over the ocean off Jan Mayen Land for #BirdoftheDay #fourormore. #birds #nature

Thanks, Alan.

In the foreground, a puffin standing tall in profile, looking to the left, with a beak full of sand eels. To the rear two more puffins, slightly out of focus - one of them is hunkered down on its tummy also looking left, while the other is looking to the right (off frame). Photo taken on Inner Farne, spring 2018.

The puffin in the foreground is standing very erect, perhaps rather pleased with itself its and its haul of sand eels - a #powerpose of sorts for today's #birdoftheday. #birds #nature

A Royal Reckoning YouTube video by Jonathan Pie

A Royal Reckoning.
JonathanPie.com

youtu.be/yiOvAgw4hwE?...

This photo, and the one accompanying are both of the Matterhorn as seen from my hotel bedroom in Zermatt. This mountain has to be the most iconic mountain of all. In its many moods, it just seems like a Platonic ideal - the stuff of imagination. In the first photo, taken during the afternoon, it was wearing some of the fluffy white cloud in the picture like a scarf, around and streaming behind its neck. More on the second photo in the next alt text...

I got up at dawn to take this one (and others). just the moon (top left) and the Matterhorn are lit up by the Sun. Not a cloud in the sky, with the ridge sitting below the mountain still in darkness.

Just felt like posting a couple of archive photos - of the Matterhorn, to brighten up the timeline. #photography #nature #EastCoastKin #mountains

A pair of spectacled ducks stood next to the water. The water in question is the meltwater forming the lage at the foot of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina. The ducks are mostly a warm chocolate-y brown, with a purple/bronze speculum visible on the wing. The 'spectacles' are very distinctive white patches between the actual eyes and the top of the dark pointed beak. Orange legs and webbed feet. The darker barring on the chest is a nice feature.

A pair of spectacled (or bronze-winged) ducks - for today's #birdoftheday #waterbirds. Details in +alt #birds

One of the most unusual and beautiful sights we had were the Buzzards, some of them had this amazing plumage and markings. Although we saw the most common type we have here in the UK, this one was in my eyes something special. It could be a young Buzzard but I am not sure. 😉😊 @rspb.bsky.social

The first of three photos all featuring the octagonal light that is the eye-dragging effective centre of this impressive cathedral. Here the view from the choir stalls looking back down the nave. The dark wood tracery of the screen is in strong contrast to the bright octagon above.

A close up fo the decoration around the base of the octagonal light - as seen through one of the (also decorated) gothic arches.

A view up to the octagonal light from not quite below it. The ribs the reach into the light and create a star-like pattern around it can be seen in the barely iluminated gloom.

Well done for lying down - I didn't. I thought I'd just add some some of my photos, to your inspired shot, of this very fine and remarkable bit of cathedral architecture ...to fill out the context. #ElyCathedral #IsleofEly #Ely

The Brexit anniversary is a day for sadness. After the results of the Brexit ref came through all those years ago, this young woman was asked to put her thoughts about it on camera. Her eloquent words spoke for so many of us back then – and her worst fears have tragically come true.
#RejoinEU 🇬🇧🇪🇺

A male(?) chimango caracara at rest on a branch of a dead tree, atop Cerro Llao Llao (near Bariloche, Argentina). The bird is looking to its left placing the head in profile, while the light-brown mottled, delicately feathered chest is seen from the front. Sunlight illuminates the left side of the bird, whilst also seem to catch the tip of the down-curved beak.

For today's #brownisbeautiful #birdoftheday, a chimango caracara seen in the Bariloche area of Argentina. Pretty chest feathers. This predator was soon bullied off its perch by the bigger predator, a crested caracara. #birds #nature #photography

The Carney doctrine Open comment thread on the PM's Davos speech

“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”

As a piece of prose and geopolitical analysis Carney’s Davos speech feels history-making. paulwells.substack.com/p/the-carney...

From the back garden around midnight: trees, part of the house, a bit of cloud at the top of the frame - and in between - a red aurora glow (to the north)

Aurora as it just happened: looking north, from the hills above Wicklow Town.

A view across the railway line out of Kilcoole towards Wicklow Town. The sun is low in the southern sky behind fine "combed-out" cirrus. Marshland occupies the middle distance, showing very dark green in the highly angled light.

Taken as we set out on this afternoon's walk, next to Kilcoole's marshes. Great sky! #EastCoastKin

Some #astronomy - a weird discovery, even.☺️

A picture of very gently rippling water, with a thin fringe of reed to the fore. Right at the front is a greylag goose in profile: fine orange beak, buff chest, pale rump and patterned brown feathers. Another one further back, has its head down.

For #BirdoftheDay #anatidae These greylags were on Hickling Broad in Norfolk.

The photo shows a doorway with a tall winerack to the near side of it. One of the two cats in the photo sits on top of the open door, while the other opts for the next highest point on top of the wine rack. A typical moment of madness from these two!

Cats... being cats. (Instinct > reason!)

Yep! Both the blog and the comments should be read. The two together are definitely mutually enriching. (I would personally sleep more easily in a world WITH international law seen as a thing.)

Two black guillemots swimming together in Greystones Marina. The view is from above, via a telephoto lens. Their bright red legs show under the water. Most of the plumage is a rich chocolate brown. The birds appear 'black' only from a distance and/or under cloudy sky. The distinctive white wing patches are clearly visible.

Just one black guillemot in this picture - seen at an angle where you can see the speckling around the top of the beak that signals the beginning of the switch to non-breeding plumage. When the switch is complete most of the 'black' will have gone, giving the bird a very different appearance.

For #birdoftheday, I have #most pictures of so-called black guillemots - a lovely chocolate-y brown, close up (the consequence of living next to a marina in Wicklow, they visited often). In photo 2, the non-breeding plumage is starting to show around the top of the beak. #birds #EastCoastKin

Today our message to Starmer is loud and clear: scrap the £3bn Trump tax on our NHS and put that money into social care now.

@libdemdaisy.bsky.social

A ring-necked parakeet clinging to a feeder, checking her surroundings (if male, the ring around the neck would be more prominent). Seen Christmas Day 2025, in strong winter sunshine. Mostly green plumage, although the tail has some blue in it, when viewed from behind.

My #mostrecent bird snap for #birdoftheday, taken yesterday - during a pre-Christmas-dnner stroll to the nearby, essentially urban, nature reserve. First saw one in 1995 (Chiswick, London). Now they're all over SE England.

A robin, on a gravel footpath in the National Botanic Garden, Kilmacurragh, Wicklow. Facing left, he/she is looking up at me as I take the photo (taken early March this year) - quite unfazed by the people around at the time.

A #Grounded robin for #BirdoftheDay - suitable also as a subject for the #holidayseason. The robin was clearly human-comfortable, being a small number of feet away on a gravel path, and happy to wait a while as I took the photo.

A Christmas-themed knitted postbox bonnet, seen in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Two dinosaurs, wearing Santa hats, sat on a white (snow?) base, with a smaller decorated Christmas tree at the front. The blue dinosaur with a striped scale on its back seems to be trying to swallow a Christmas pudding. The dinoosaur at the back is green with yellow spots and is swallowing some tinsel.

...seasonally-themed postbox bonnets are a thing in St Albans, Herts, too. I raise you two dinosaurs in Santa hats!

Great tits, juvenile blue tits, and a couple of siskins on 3 bird feeders hanging outside a cottage window in the Lake District. June 2022.

10 #birdsonfeeders for #BirdOfTheDay. At this location - a cottage near Coniston in the Lake District - there was never any shortage of birds on the feeders, which would empty in a day. The blue tits visible have grey caps, marking them out as juveniles (photo taken June '22). #birds

...such a nihilistic, mean-spirited thing to try to do. Despicable. Imbecilic. Have to hope congress pushes back.

Eight Chilean flamingos in the lake next to El Calafate, in Patagonia, Argentina. Photo taken on an October late-ish afternoon. One of the two flamingos at the extreme left is facing the remaining six who are pretty nearly lined up, as if in a class of some sort. All of them have warm rose-pink plumage, with a slash of shocking pink near the tail.

For #Birdoftheday #groups - a troup of Chilean flamingos, seen near El Calafate, Argentina. The way they are arranged almost looks like a class for debutantes in how to carry yourself. Lovely and comical at the same time. #birds