Lucy Lapwing
@Lucy_Lapwing
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🍄 Naturalist, wildlife weirdo. Fungus-poker, bug-ogler. 💚Fighting for a world with more WILD in it 👊🏻 🪶RSPB & WWT Ambassador
Joined April 2009
Almost 6 years to the day I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, my nerdy adventures are being shared on #Winterwatch! A show I idolised as an awkward teen, it's surreal to see myself yomping around on there! Thanks all your nerds for your love and support 🥰❄️@BBCSpringwatch
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Somewhere, very near you, is a tiny being, just going about their day. They don’t care about you, or me, nor any of our worries. And I find so much comfort in that 💚🐌
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It’s here, it’s here, it’s HAPPENING, it’s here!!! Wiggling, jiggling gelatinous JOY. Inky full-stops full of amphibious promise, wrapped in a cuddle of gorgeous gloop. Frog season is upon us 😍
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Yesterday I felt as dreary as the weather, so I went for a wander on a beach. Gazing at the sand, I saw a bit of plastic; I thought it looked a bit like a whale in its shape. I bent down and OH MY. It *was* a whale. A teeeeny, tiny white ceramic one. What does this omen mean?!
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I was photographing this Chalkhill Blue and I accidentally captured the most PERFECT bumblebum interruption 😭 these fleeting moments in nature are what it’s allll about, right?
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These trails are left by TINY caterpillars living *inside* leaves. Inside the caterpillar lives a bacteria. The bacteria causes the caterpillar to emit a hormone in its spit, which keeps the leaf green. It stops autumn in its tracks until it emerges. Nature is MINT😍 #Autumnwatch
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Thank you Norfolk 😍 my first ever SWALLOWTAIL 🤩 felt like I was in the presence of a celeb. What a stunner 👌🏻 complete with photobombing bee 👀 #springwatch
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People think ‘cute’ is only for mammals. May I present you. my cockchafer 😍😭 insects can be cute too right?!
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Appreciating nature treasures is consitently a source of nerdy joy. When I spy a wild trinket - the perfect limpet shell, a teeny piece of seaglass, a Redshank's feather - I get all giddy. Riches of the sea, spat out from the salty blue, onto the shore at my feet. How magic.
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I know it's late o'clock, but I need to share that I just saw my FIRST EVER OTTER!!! I've waited soooo long for this 😭 guys, it was bobbing along on its back munching something that looked deliciously crunchy. Sooo perfect I ugly-cried until my binoculars steamed up 😭🎉💚
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I. I think *may* have just been an accessory to robin flirtation. And I am totally okay with that 😭🥺 .@BBCSpringwatch #Springwatch
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Gaze at the forest floor underneath a towering beech tree. Get down on your belly if you can. Have a closer look. You might spot some tiny purple protrusions amongst the marmalade leaf litter. Amethyst Deceivers, the mushrooms of fairytales! Tiny and *perfectly* purple 💜
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My pockets are *always* full of nature treasures. Acorns, feathers & even owl pellets (ha). Recently there's been another item my fingers find in there. 3 weeks ago, whilst birdwatching on my local patch, something horrible happened to me. I'm fine & won't go (1/6) #SarahEverard
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Me: nature is intricate, so complex & delicately balanced. It is beauty. it is wonder. We should all bathe in its exquisiteness . Also me: hahaha fungus looks like balls
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I met a quite frankly *ridiculous* mushroom the other day. Look how tiny it is. LOOK 👀
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Happy birthday to a massive nature nerd, @ChrisGPackham! Thank you for the wisdom, the nerdiness & the passion💚Chris is spending his birthday standing up to online hate & vitriol in court, what a slog. Please show him some support & solidarity if you can:
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WHAT'S THE POINT OF WASPS?! 🤔 . Pollinators, predators, paper-makers - they're fascinating!. Want to avoid being stung? Don't swat, stay calm, hide your sugar and compliment them (they might just like it) 🖤💛. #turnfearintofascination #wasps
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My heart 💔 you can't put a value on urban trees. The way they dapple summer sunlight. The way they cool & shade. The bird songsters they host, the hum of insects. Gone, for what? This, right here, is death by 1000 cuts. Handfuls of trees, here and there, adding up to desolation.
Overnight Plymouth’s Conservative council chopped down nearly 100 trees in the city centre. It’s a scene of environmental devastation and utter council vandalism. I’m appalled at the actions of the Tory Council. Sad day for our city. #plymouth #ArmadaWay
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Ridiculous attire, salty and sweaty after a swim and cycle, but tonight I found and saw my first EVER CORNCRAKE! Listen to that!! First record for Bute since 2010, absolutely buzzing. What noisy little weirdos, I love them 😍 😭
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Found a really sexy stick today & we're life partners now 💚.Just LOOK at it!! Oysterlings are heartbreakers 💔
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I know there’s heaps of sh*t in the world, but today my Twitter feed has been pure and absolutely BURSTING with spring joy and love for our natural world. It’s why I love nature nerds!! Share your spring joy please! Here’s a gorgeous bumbler I met today 😍💚💚💚
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This afternoon I lay on my back in the sun and watched a carder bee guzzle from bluebells. I found peace. My heart sung. The scent of the flowers and the sun shining through the fuzz of her bum just melted my soul. Nature - and I cannot emphasise this enough - is EVERYTHING 💚
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Protruding from its stick, this teeeeny mushy exploded my heart into a million pieces when I spied it nestled in the leaf litter. It’s tiny scenes in nature like these that bring me moments of peace and intense fascination. Just wanted to share this one with you 💚🍄
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Listen to this!! On a yomp with @bardseyben last week, we disturbed this snoozing peacock whilst pulling up some rhododendron. It proceeded to get peed off & put on a reet showy display to fend us off! Eyes flashing, & that incredible noise! I’ve never heard owt like it before?!
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THEY'RE HEEEEEREEEE 🎉 THE CHIFFCHAFFS ARE BACK! Chiffing and chaffing all over the place. Argh, my soul feels so happy. Such a wonderful sound! 🥰 #SpringIsComing
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in a fleece and wellies in *broad daylight*?! It needs to stop. From men, from the media, from everyone. My heart aches for Sarah's family & friends, it's so, so unfair. Love & solidarity to them & women affected by this awfulness 💚💚💚(6/6).
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I think hazel flowers exist to remind me I don’t have to do huge things to be utterly fabulous 🥰
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Lichens have absolutely no business being this fabulous. Who do those scarlet-topped sassy stalks think they are?!
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Treasures. Spat from the salty lips of the deep blue sea. I could stare at them for aaaaages. And I did 😍
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I cuddled a cockchafer and I can report back that they are ADORABLE and too pure for this world 😭
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A while back a 14 year old lad from India started following me on Insta. He absolutely LOVES nature, but was being discouraged by friends, parents & teachers. Now he’s started his own wildlife page & he tags me in photos of the coolest bugs & birds & lizards. Soo good to see! 😭.
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I think wood anenomes are the forest floor's answer to a starry night sky. Just glorious. #wildflowerhour
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Face down, bum up - that’s the way I look at BUGS! Or fungi. Or flowers. Or anything really 😂 Blown away by your lovely words, and support for the little things in nature after last night’s #Winterwatch 😭 Here’s to being out and proud nature nerds! 💚 @BBCSpringwatch
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We share a world with feathered beings… who SING 🤯 does that not just blow your mind?!. Tomorrow is #DawnChorusDay and I’m SO excited. If you fancy an early rise (go on… you know you wanna) I’ll be on @Natures_Voice Instagram LIVE at 5am to bathe in birdsong & answer Q’s! 🎶
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A joy-inducing barn owl fly by tonight 😍 my heart was pounding so hard I’m sure they could hear it 😭 succeeded with a juicy vole dinner too 💚 #8outof10bats
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Nerdy top tip: turn your phone upside down when photographing *tiny* mushrooms, and reveal a magical miniature world nestled amongst the mossy forest floor 😍 #FungiFriday
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Went on an early morn Kayak on my bill today. A *hunky* grey seal popped up sooo close I nearly wee’d and fell out. Curlews zoomed, turnstones zipped and shags soared. Gannets plummeted like arrows into the blue. How flippin’ brill!
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My dad has *always* mowed the lawn. He’s been a fanatic, never letting it get messy and cutting it religiously each week. I’ve pleaded & nagged for years. I recently visited, and he’s surprised me with some un-mown patches and I’m so chuffed I cried 😭
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Had a swim and a kingfisher zoomed STRAIGHT past me, and swallows swooped down and drank. It was mint 😍
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All of the things and colours and life and patterns and shapes happening in this rock pool. ALL of them.
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Gotta be the highlight of my prop-making experience so far… froghopper bum complete with bubbling cuckoo spit 😂🙌🏻 Expertly modelled by @ChrisGPackham on tonight’s show 👌🏻 #springwatch @BBCSpringwatch @michaelastracha
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I’ve been nervous about this, but think it’s important to talk about. I’m sharing a personal story, discussing a big & rather scary topic, & chatting to some wonderful, inspirational women on @BBCRadio4 tonight. Clipped Wings is on at 8pm, & available on BBC sounds afterwards.
After a frightening incident of sexual assault while birdwatching, @BBCSpringwatch naturalist @Lucy_Lapwing visits 4 women to try to renew her passion for being alone in nature. 'Clipped Wings', our latest @BBCRadio4 doc, airs tonight at 8pm. Brilliantly produced by @flowerpot.
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A fella toad recently mistook my ankle for a lady toad and latched onto me with his grippy little toad arms. Let me tell you it’s about the best compliment I ever did receive. Heart officially bursting 🥺 is this true love?!
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I’ve just found out yesterday, when I found the tiny whale, WAS WORLD WHALE DAY what is happening?!?!.
Yesterday I felt as dreary as the weather, so I went for a wander on a beach. Gazing at the sand, I saw a bit of plastic; I thought it looked a bit like a whale in its shape. I bent down and OH MY. It *was* a whale. A teeeeny, tiny white ceramic one. What does this omen mean?!
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Nature’s prettiness isn’t for us. All of the evolutionary moments that led to this GORGEOUS emperor moth existing have nothing have nothing to do with humans. And yet… we can gaze upon a creature like him; his shapes and colours… and we *feel things*. Isn’t that amazing?!
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Tell me why the first blackbird of the year made my soul burst and my eyes fill with tears tonight!! Belting away outside the bathroom window! Ahh! The joy of it!! 😭😭😭
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I love that our minds can take something as ordinary as sea snail shells, and translate our observation of them into awe. The variety of colours in Flat Periwinkles! Buttercups, marmalades, rusts and olives! Aren’t they gorgeous?
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Otter joy!! The most pure, heart-bursting otter encounter yesterday. Mum and cub, play fighting in the shallows. Squeaks, grunts and splashes. How utterly gorgeous is nature?! 😭
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If you enjoy seeing me poke (and love) bugs I do lots of it on my Insta under @Lucy_Lapwing too 🐝👈💚.
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"We want cheap food, and we want to have big choice, on offer, year round.". THIS. I should not be able to buy strawberries in December and mangoes year-round. We need to re-simplify our relationship with food, and the land it's grown from. #ExtinctionTheFacts.
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@Atara_San They're sooo gentle! Move slow, and look closely - they're beautiful. Many species can't even sting! 😊.
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IDEA: What if for Christmas this year, we all did 'Panic Not-Buying'? What if we all decided the climate and biodiversity crisis was *so* important (an actual crisis, if you will), that it merited simply NOT buying the stuff we do every year? 1/.
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This chunky sausage nearly became a pancake in the path of cyclists recently. I gave it a *really* good ogle, plenty of compliments, and sent it on its wiggly way into the undergrowth. To know this 🐘 trunk with eye splodges will become a pink-&-lime beauty is just astounding!
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I find the fact that male ashy mining bees have moustaches simultaneously hilarious and heartbreakingly-cute 😂🥺 just look at those bushy whiskers!
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Porcelain fungus is incredible! This is a mushroom that resembles glazed pottery, and oozes it’s own fungicide to annihilate competitors. It’s often the only ‘shroom on the branch. How beautiful and badass 😈🤌🏻 #FungiFriday
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An absolutely COLOSSAL shaggy ink cap, protruding from the ground as proud as anything. Finger and face for scale! Spied at @WildKenHill 🤩 #autumnwatch back on tonight at 8pm, see you then! 🍁🍂👀
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This weekend I lay in this “messy” un-mown lawn for 20mins and had SUCH a good time. A tiny area absolutely fizzing with colourful, scuttling, buzzing, humming life. I laughed, I squealed with joy. I smiled at a speedwell and cried a little bit at a beetle. #NoMowMay is magic 🥺
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This year’s been the toughest of my life. From hovering over calling @samaritans, to upping my life and moving miles, it’s been a journey. Nature’s consistently held me & given me strength. As have you nerds 💚Hope’s there now. Signing off for a bit, sending much love 💚❄️
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Feeling my heart burst at the simplicity of a Red Admiral on a fallen fence post. Ordinary, pure, uncomplicated joy 💚
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Nerds, have you ever clapped your eyes on something so wonderfully vivid?! As gorgeously garish as a 90's shellsuit, these have to be some of the most psychadelic limbs going, surely? Snakeslocks Anemones entrancing me like a neon Medusa. So stunning!
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An hour this afternoon soaking up the tranquility of this basking chubster worked wonders. Giving that rotund belly the most satisfying of scratches, argh!! 😍
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Chuffed to announce I’ve got a nerdy lil series starting on @BBCRadio3! Join me at 7:45am-ish each Sunday morn for a celebration of spring wildlife. I’ll be on for the next 9 weeks! Can you guess the subject of tomorrow’s episode? 😂🐸👀 #frogfie
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I just *really* like bugs. Tomorrow I’ll be joining @ChrisGPackham, @MeganMcCubbin & heaps of wonderful folks and orgs outside @DefraNature. Let’s show up for the wild souls we share this world with! Hope to see loads of you nerds there 💚 #RestoreNatureNow #StateofNature
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Another night in the macro-studio on #Autumnwatch, and a marvellously Mothy one 😍 my gorgeous Feathered Thorn put on an antennal show shortly after we were live. Look at those feathery beauties!! Thanks for all your kind comments about my nerdy natterings 🥰 @BBCSpringwatch
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SO excited (& nervous) to announce my new YouTube series: #Birdsong Lessons with Lucy Lapwing!!🥰.Lockdown's naff, but we can use the time to learn the voices behind birds 🐦🎶 Hopefully this can help! Watch Episode 1: Introduction here 👉🏻 #Winterwatch
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as if it would lend me some real defence when alone in a car park. Nature has ALWAYS been my safe space, but now I feel it's been robbed from me and I'm so bloody angry. To people blaming Sarah Everard for walking alone at night - stop. Can I be blamed for birdwatching, (5/6).
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It's #worldcancerday2021 & 6 years to the day I began chemo for H.Lymphoma. Chemo made me physically better but nature was the BEST remedy for my noggin. Prodding frogs, climbing trees, watching bugs; connecting with nature does wonders & I'll bang the drum for it forever 🥁💚
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A few grams of grumpy perfection, perched upon the tip of my finger 🥺😭 I don’t know if there’s a greater sense of mild peril than the moment you find yourself on a damp path in mid summer, suddenly surrounded by a herd of impossibly dinky amphibians?!
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Thursday: 'yaaaay! My 1st cowslip of the year!!'. *less than 24 hours later*. 🙃🙃🙃. WHY?! Why this incessant need to mow every single bloody cm of grass?! Arrrgghhhhdhdkwlfgjigjgjdnsl
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This morning I called it! At about 8 o’clock I said “today’s the day, it just *is*”. All day…nothing. Screamless skies. And then EEEEEE! 9 o’clock tonight, as the sun set and midges bit - a crescent mooned beauty cut through the sky above us. SWIIIIIIIIIIFT!.
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Five mins into @ChrisGPackham’s ‘Is it time to break the law?’ On Channel 4 and already crying. I feel this so acutely - the pain, the rage, the fear, the dilemma. Looking back at decades of the message being ignored, what choice do we have? #chrispackhamc4.
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I took my mum out on a nature nerdy walk and by the end of it she was crawling around taking photos of Viper’s-bugloss against the sunset and nerds I’m *so* proud 🥺🥺🥺
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Headlines like this are *infuriating*. Poorly researched, scaremongering and quite frankly ridiculous. Can confirm: I’ve dipped my finger in Cuckoo Spit and licked it, with no harmful effects, or indeed any effects at all 😂👀
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Don’t normally post these things, but just wanted to share my darling family dog Jelly with you all 💚 Jel passed away this weekend at the good ol’ age of 18ish. She was nuts. Fab. Naughty. Cheeky. Adorable. We don’t deserve em! 💔 Sleep tight my lil BellyJean 💚
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Yesterday I ate so many blackberries on my walk I felt sick. It was bloody great 😂
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Window open. No alarm. 5:03 and the Blackbird gently coaxed me from slumber. I tiptoed outside, into the cool. A tangle of sound; warm, energetic, urgent, joyful. What an auditory treasure it is, birdsong 😭 #InternationalDawnChorusDay #DawnChorus
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Fully worth screeching to a halt and clambering into a brambly verge for 😍 these pyramidal BABES donning fuchsia and cerise, and the most satisfying waterfall of flowers👌🏻 the perfect celebration for orchid week on #wildflowerhour!
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Wild Isles!! Our wild, wonder-filled isles, on the telly 😭 to see footage of such incredible behaviour, peril, ecology and beauty, without shying away from the truth about the poor state of things - absolutely bloody brill! What did you think? #WildIsles.
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Last week it was a frogfie, this week it’s a toadfie. I couldn’t stop laughing 😂 look how grumpy she is. LOOK
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It’s less than a month til these zooming crescent moons return to our skies, and there are less than 5,000 signatures left to reach 100K on @WriterHannahBT’s swift petition!! Please sign it and share it everywhere!
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Good morning from the gorgeous @WildKenHill 😍 isn’t this poppy field incredible?! Another day of #springwatch and wild things ahead 🙌🏻
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I went for a walk in the woods & decided to collect feathers to soothe my mind. Venturing under the canopy I thought ‘I’d love to find a jay feather’. Many paths later I spied this little grey job. I very nearly carried on, but something made me turn it over. I’m SO glad I did 😍
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Nature's bling ✨ 💎 💍 💅😎. Elephant & Poplar hawkmoths chilling on my hand. I can only assume they're simply basking in their own beauty? 🤔🤷♀️🙌👏. #MothsMatter #BigButterflyCount #springwatch #earthcapture @savebutterflies @BBCSpringwatch
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They’re HERE!! The chiffs have descended and they were CHAFFING 😍 oh how I have missed you, you little brown beauties 😭 haopy chiffchaff day everyone! 💚
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Met my first Golden-Bloomed Longhorn Beetle recently. Woweeeee. Glitz, glam, sparkles and the most OTT antennae you ever did see. What an honour 😍✨
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Hello beautiful Dorset 👋🏻 😍 #Springwatch is back on your tellies tonight, wooooo! So chuffed to be with the team at the gorgeous (and buttercuppy) RSPB Arne for the next three weeks! Lots of wild and nerdy treats coming up 🤩 @BBCSpringwatch @Natures_Voice
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Magic moment with one of Wild Ken Hill’s many, many, MANY brown hares yesterday morning. What magnificently handsome and mad-looking animals they are 😍 #springwatch @BBCSpringwatch @WildKenHill
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This wall caused me to stop, rub my thighs and audibly "phwooaaar" on my walk to the shop today. What a sexy fern - maidenhair spleenwort! So extravagant. So delicate. A gorgeous addition to any moist wall, with an absolutely *belting* name to boot 😍💚
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I don’t want the Twitter nature community to disappear 🥺 you guys have brought me joy, friendship, knowledge & shared awe at the natural world. I’m sticking around here, but it’d be fab to see some of you on Instagram (@lucy_lapwing), and heck I might even try Mastodon?! 🤷🏻♀️.
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Hazel pollen in early spring sunlight. Tell me how this isn't magic? How this is not witchcraft? Spells of wonder cast by nature in all of her witchy glory, dust on breeze, glitter on wind's breath. Thousands of grains, each smaller than a human hair is thick. Wowee 😍✨
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Having a pretty rough old time at the moment, so going to be taking a break from Twitter & Insta. Back soon, and sending 💚 and spring vibes to you all 👍🏻
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Can we stop taking the pee out of people for just ENJOYING THE NATURAL WORLD?! ✋🏻🛑💚🐦 Nature is the best hobby going - don't let people embarrass you out of loving it! #ProudBirdwatcher 💚💚💚🥰.
Oh dear. An acquaintance sent a message about me, to me 😬 I get it, my new found fun of birdwatching might be boring but I live alone, in a pandemic, not allowed pets so I take what entertainment I can find!
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