‘Christian’ Plants that reconnect us with our pagan ancestors A celebration of festive evergreens. To most people reading this, it’s the run up to Christmas, a time of merriment and celebration. Along with dutiful communications, fear of offence and panic shopping. Here in north west Europe, religions have tied in with early seasonal traditions. We […]
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A winter’s tale – the last true penguin? December 1852, sailing home for Christmas, a highly respected ornithologist spotted what he believed to be a penguin off the coast of Newfoundland. The lone bird is widely believed to be the last sighting of the last true penguin. Was it or wasn’t it? Was it a […]
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Reading and saving the planet How can a child, snuggled in bed being read to from our Reindeer Book, or any of our other books for that matter, possibly have anything to do with COP26 and the fate of the planet and life on Earth? Maybe I oversimplify things. I find politics mind-bogglingly complicated and […]
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Can Santa’s Reindeer save the Titanic world; the world as we knew it?– We think so “History makes little sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes little sense without biology. Knowledge of prehistory and biology is increasing rapidly, bringing into focus how humanity originated and why a species like our own exists on this planet.” Edward […]
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Creating Octagopus! This is the tale of Octagopus and how the image inspired by an octopus, came to be. Octagopus is probably our most popular image after Curly. I may have to enter a sort of whimsy-world to describe her in an entertaining way. So here we go… She was waiting in my head to […]
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An introduction to echinoderms and their weird and wonderful lives. Have you ever lost touch with a relative? It’s a rhetorical question really because you and I are related but our ancestors lost touch hundreds or even thousands of years ago. It is, in biological terms, meant to happen, we are made both to disperse […]
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A brief story of the Steller’s Sea Cow The world of the Steller’s sea cow is something we only know from the written descriptions of a castaway. A Scientist on an expedition Our hero, and part-villain, Georg Steller was a German scientist on a Russian expedition to the western coast of north America. They would be […]
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Spotting A Seal Pup – A Treat Like Christmas We’ve blogged about seals before but it seems there is always a bit more to say and seal pupping season comes round each year just like Christmas with snowy white seal pup and shingle swells. Earlier this year too we had the treat of Wally the […]
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Don’t let wasps ruin the end of your summer Summery weather makes us want to be outdoors but, as the season progresses some of us are pestered or terrorised by little black and yellow beings who seem intent on spoiling our fun. It is all a misunderstanding though, wasps are our allies and they are […]
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It may be a tiddler, but the stickleback is Britain and Europe’s smallest and most widespread inland fish. They can live in cold, warm, fresh and salt water. Sticklebacks are real survivors and lie, or swim, at the very source of studies into animal behaviour and sentience. 10 Stickleback facts The three spined stickleback is […]
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