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@RobGMacfarlane
First Swifffttttt of the year! At last!
High above the garden, pulling an audacious handbrake turn into the billowing wind. Joy...
Thinking again of Edward Thomas's lines in 'Haymaking':
"The swift with wings & tail as sharp & narrow
As if the bow had flown off with the arrow."
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@RobGMacfarlane
Paths are the habits of a landscape.
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@RobGMacfarlane
“It is not the swimmer who poisons our rivers, nor the rambler who burns the moorland; when they took away our right to access the land, they took away our ability to protect it.”
The Trespasser’s Companion, out today.
More on the English access campaign:
righttoroam.org.uk twitter.com/nickhayesillus…
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@RobGMacfarlane
My Dad won the "Botanical" category of this year's Scottish Nature Photography Awards with this brilliant, defamiliarising image of a lichen-hung rowan tree near Glen Affric.
Like a medieval tapestry.
Coverage: bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla…
Fascinatingly, he's red-green colourblind.
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@RobGMacfarlane
“Let the world be as horrified and as generous as we have been for Ukraine, to stop Afghan children dying right now.”
@UNOCHA twitter.com/EleanorMonbiot…
81
@RobGMacfarlane
Young people, parents, teachers:
I'm a trustee of @Action4Conserv, a charity that works to inspire & connect 12-16 yr olds with nature.
We run free & fun week-long Summer Camps.
Applying's easy & applications are open here: actionforconservation.org/camp
🌱 Please spread the word! 🌱
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@RobGMacfarlane
First blossom today on this apple tree, grown from a pip gathered by my friend Roger Deakin from Kazakhstan's ur-apple forests. He died 3 yrs later.
I always mark the day; think of Rog.
A memory-tree. You've probably got one yourself.
Story of the tree: emergencemagazine.org/essay/east-to-…
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@RobGMacfarlane
For #WorldPoetryDay, the great Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska’s “The End and the Beginning”, translated by Joanna Trzeciak.
“After every war
Someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
Straighten themselves up, after all…”
poetryfoundation.org/poems/52955/th…
84
@RobGMacfarlane
The great @billmckibben, clarifying as ever, with this epic @NewYorker essay re-framing the climate crisis with a rule to live by: in a world on fire, stop burning things.
newyorker.com/news/essay/in-…
85
@RobGMacfarlane
I wrote a film called River.
It's directed by @jenpeedom.
Narrated by Willem Dafoe.
Music by Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood/@JnnyG & the astonishing @didgefusion.
It's about the death & life of rivers––& how our future flows with theirs.
It's out this Friday: river.film
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@RobGMacfarlane
Vanishing point on an old railway line out in the Fens.
Seven or eight skylarks, singing their hearts out at all dark matter, lifting the spirit.
Heard skylarks yet this year? Where & when?
87
@RobGMacfarlane
Up on the otherworld of Buachaille Etive Mor summit this afternoon.
Late-day light & roaming spindrift.
Big winds; drop & stop when the gusts came.
Up Curved Ridge, down through the main corrie.
Ravens & juniper with us up there, not much else.
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@RobGMacfarlane
Thanks to my friend the legend @StanleyDonwood for letting me use a detail from his #WeStandWithUkraine-adapted linocut The Eraser as a new banner.
Follow him here/on Instagram: he’s about to sell a run of this print to raise funds to help refugees from the war. Gonna fly. 🇺🇦
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@RobGMacfarlane
The amazing indy publishers @LittleToller & @Ofmooseandmen have just launched this initiative to help the displaced children of Ukraine.
They're sending 10,000 backpacks filled w/ books, torches, gloves, hats, games...
Pls spread the word, donate, support.
justgiving.com/crowdfunding/p… twitter.com/LittleToller/s…
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@RobGMacfarlane
The Disasters Emergency Committee has launched an appeal for Ukraine; individual donations will now be matched by the UK Government through UKAid, up to an initial £20,000,000.
So e.g. £100 given becomes (with Gift Aid) £225 received by @decappeal.
Spread the word.
👇👇👇👇 twitter.com/decappeal/stat…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Meanwhile:
"Our report clearly indicates that places where people live & work may cease to exist, that ecosystems & species we've all grown up with & that are central to our cultures & inform our languages may disappear."
bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…
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@RobGMacfarlane
In case of interest, "The Living Mountain"––a 1/2-hour radio love-letter to the Cairngorms & the writing of Nan Shepherd that I made in 2013––is back up on @BBCSounds.
Some extraordinary things happened up in the hills while we were recording this.
Here: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Writing today about this ivory figurine.
It's c. 30,000 years old; found in the Hohle Fels cave in the Swabian Jura.
A tiny Ice Age bird, wings swept back tight to its body.
Such grace of being & making.
A Diver? Goose? Cormorant?
It knows where it's going.
[Photo @uni_tue]
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@RobGMacfarlane
Out filming in a silver birch forest; frost & sun, geese overhead.
Bar(k) codes everywhere, scanning for beauty.
Fairy-tale-forest trees—& also among the first to re-colonise after the glaciers retreated at the end of the Ice Ages.
Watchful, tough trees.
Love silver birches.
95
@RobGMacfarlane
I'm a signatory to this letter to the Times today, calling for the Lords to vote down the #PolicingBill on 17 Jan.
If you want to add your voice, you can:
* Email yr MP or a Lord abt Part 3 of PCSC Bill
* Sign Liberty's petition opposing Bill:
action.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/page/78339/pet…
Pls RT twitter.com/KishWidyaratna…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Wind In The Willows, as re-written by @SouthernWater.
Via @PrivateEyeNews
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@RobGMacfarlane
“On their journeys, these dragonflies make a multigenerational migration of 18,000 kilometres in a year, with a single individual flying over 6,000 kilometres.”
@Yuvan_aves, brilliant as ever, on the mysteries & wonders of migratory dragonflies. sustain.round.glass/species/wander…
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@RobGMacfarlane
This!
France bans 30 kinds of fruit & veg from having any plastic wrapping, inc. apples & cucumbers
‘The environment ministry said there must be curbs on the “outrageous amount of single-use plastic in our daily lives”’
RT if UK shd follow suit
@DefraGovUK theguardian.com/world/2021/dec…
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@RobGMacfarlane
The #FairyCreek protest against old-growth logging (inc. 1000-yo cedars) on Vancouver Island is ongoing.
Now Canada's largest act of civil disobedience.
1200 arrests
$9m in RCMP costs
Support: linktr.ee/TheRainforestF…
Follow on IG: @fairycreekblockade
vice.com/en/article/5dg…
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@RobGMacfarlane
Turns out my Christmas present, like many people’s, is COVID.
Going to be a long & solitary Xmas period.
Would welcome recommendations to pass time/keep spirits up, esp podcasts: archaeology, geology, natural history, mystery, thriller & points beyond.
Go well & safely, all!
@RobGMacfarlane
Books: Is A River Alive? (WIP) Underland, The Lost Words, The Old Ways, etc. | Films: River, Mountain, Upstream | Nature, climate, people | Prof @Cambridge_uni