Happy #StaffordshireDay to all @WeAreStaffs 🫶 started mine with an #oatcake hot off the #StaffordshireGriddle😋👌#GreatDaysStartWithOatcakes

If you are old enough to have driven in Britain in the 1980s, you remember the windscreen. By July you could barely see through it. A run from Leeds to London in August finished with a bumper that looked like it had been to war and a sheet of glass you scrubbed with a sponge at the services while the engine ticked as it cooled. Moths in the headlights. Flies in the wing mirrors. The grille packed solid. Nobody thought it remarkable. It was simply the price of moving through a country that was still, in living memory, heaving with flying things. Drive that same road today. Stop at the same services. The windscreen is clean. Spotless. You could very nearly eat off it. We have the numbers, for those who want them. The Bugs Matter survey, run by Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, has had volunteers counting the splats on their number plates since 2004. Britain's flying insects are down by roughly four fifths in twenty years. Gone in a single human lifetime, while the rest of us noticed nothing at all. The birds went down with them, because the birds lived on them. A child born this year can grow up in the English countryside and never once hear a turtle dove, for the simple reason that there is almost nothing left to do the calling. And none of it, not one acre of it, happened on the grass. It happened in the arable fields, where the hedges were torn out for bigger machines and a single crop was sprayed over and over to keep it upright. The herb-rich meadow grazed by cattle still hums. The beetles, the pollinators, the ground-nesting birds, all still there, just about, on the pasture our ancestors never stopped grazing. So when someone tells you your steak is emptying the British countryside, ask them what grew on that field before it was drained and ploughed and sprayed to raise the oats for the carton in their fridge. It was grass, and there were cattle on it, and back then the windscreen needed cleaning.

Echoing that @PaulWilliams207 What an absolutely brilliant show @NewVicTheatre transporting the audience to a magical place. On until 20th June. Don’t miss the boat to see it💫🫶

Can anyone identify this creature? #BeetleId #Wildliferequest

Is anyone still interested in saving their High Street, local shops, parade, village centre, town centre? Get in touch and I will follow 😁😁👍👍 IF you know anyone please tag them. Thanks

One of the arguments @CambsCC uses to justify throwing Coton Orchard under a busway is the lack of formal designations, like SSSI, or visibility in reports shaped by promoters of the scheme. They don’t dispute the many red-list species the site supports ✏️ change.org/p/save-the-green-…

England wildlife watchdog ‘has stopped designating special sites for protection’ ⁦@guardianeco⁩ theguardian.com/environment/…

Reposting this column as the government once again ignores the British ceramics industry where it matters most, in energy support schemes. The ceramics sector is fundamental to our national and local economy and heritage, and it requires sustained government commitment. As the only historic place-based industrial cluster of significant scale in the country, the Potteries is ideally positioned to help the government deliver several of the ‘IS-8’ growth-driving sectors set out in the Modern Industrial Strategy. It’s time to extend the industry supercharger scheme to cover the ceramics sector now.

One for you @myteatowels instagram.com/p/DW1BQ7xjJOr/…

A very good question @tsdomestics

THIS is what solar farms REALLY look like in UK. Not high panels, no huge gaps between, no crops or even sheep except a few occasionally to graze edges or for photo call. Ecology does not thrive in darkness. PUT THEM ON ROOFS/WALLS/OVER URBAN TARMAC and plug straight into grid.

The spin paints landowners as greedy blockers of homes and growth. Then a line is drawn on a map in an office somewhere and your home is in its path. You realise it’s ordinary people who lose, while developers bank the upside. By the time that clicks, it’s already too late 🫤

Hands up if you are surprised ...

Happy 80th birthday, Nello! 🎂 A much-loved member of the Keele University community and a familiar face on campus for over 60 years. An unofficial mascot for Keele – known and loved by generations of students and staff. 💚

Replanting beside the A14 - the plastic tubes are like countless tombstones. Once again demonstrating the hard realities of BNG.

Not Madingley reservoir, that’s up the hill. This scrub is the chosen line for the C2C busway, cutting through a future water supply & a wildlife site that sits waterlogged all winter. Spot the flaw? Let’s hope the SoS shows more sense than our County Council & says no to TWAO 💧

A community that eats together, stays together! #Ubuntu I am because we are. @SOTCollege

The Federation of British Artists at Mall Galleries is proud to announce a new partnership with the Visual Artists Association. All entrants to our FBA Open Calls will now receive access to an exclusive Artist Resource Pack courtesy of the VAA. 📸: Mark Sepple

We're looking forward to welcoming Mark Lippett back to the museum next month. He's booked our Willow Room to hold an ink pen drawing course. Please contact Mark directly to book. #drawing #inkpendrawing #artclasses

What is wrong with this Potato???🥔🚜

1 million views, deserves 1 billion more. 👏👏👏👏