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Nicola Pitchford

@npitchford.bsky.social

5.4K followers 1.8K following 5.5K posts

Immigrant. Winner of the inaugural Nature Chronicles Prize (2022). She/her. In Northern California on unceded Coast Miwok land.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · Mar 19

Honoured to be part of the beautiful, fragile collective work #BirdsOfFirle, created & curated by Tanya. An ongoing project of 100 writers responding with objects & online to a single physical manuscript, circulated by post over the course of a decade. On grief & hope as the things with feathers...

Tanya Shadrick @tanyashadrick.bsky.social · Mar 19

‘She worked on the Harrier, the Concorde. She had a love of speed and freedom. Sports cars. Like the one in which she fled. Flew. From marriage and family. From us.’

Stunning piece by @npitchford.bsky.social for the decade-long collective #BirdsOfFirle project…

selkiepress.com/2025/03/18/b...

Birds of Firle: She Was Always in Flight by Nicola Pitchford

Aerodynamics was her chosen field of engineering. She worked on the Harrier, the Concorde. She had a love of speed and freedom. Sports cars. Like the one in which eventually she fled. Flew. From ma…

selkiepress.com

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 3h

So much love there 🥰

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 3h

Fantastic! Congratulations. This must go onto my TBR pile.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 4h

Ha! Spotted myself in photo accompanying a San Francisco Chronicle article about a fabulous local roadside bakery van, queuing up to buy a post-run treat in the rural sunshine. That’s about as on-brand for me as it comes.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 5h

He is. There's nothing like a gentle, sugar-snouted senior.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 5h

Welcome home!

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 6h

Office experience upgrade achieved 🥰

Elderly golden retriever in a red bandana getting ear rubs from someone out of shot, sitting at a wooden desk.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 8h

Darkness, fog, silence & drizzle this morning; I stuck to the paved paths. Looked up & saw the unmistakable shape of wise owl, & a conversation of multiple owls began: two at least with the deep, furred “whoo-whoo,” a third with the high, hoarse “keee-yuh” that I fell asleep listening to last night.

Silhouette of an owl on an almost leafless treetop against a foggy, blue-grey darkness.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 10h

Cannot believe the perfection. Or purrfection.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 10h

Ooh you’ve just reminded me I should 🤞🏼 have a dog friend at work today. Things have brightened considerably.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 10h

Warms the cockles.

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Reposted by Nicola Pitchford

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 19h

Fascism is such a fundamental attack on wonder and the human imagination and I think everyone should have the opportunity to let their imagination wonder as it wanders — doesn’t matter what you do for a living. Your mind matters! Your relationship with the universe is meaningful!

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 19h

Make sure you have sweets & a hankie in your bag 👍🏼

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 21h

Ok #BikeSky friends — Austin Killips, driven out of cycling by transphobes & institutional cowardice, needs to sell a bunch of gear in order to make ends meet. Here’s the list of stuff you can buy to help her start anew (even though she should still be racing 💔🏳️‍⚧️):

THE AUSTIN KILLIPS CAREER MEMORIAL EQUIPMENT AND MEMORIES SALE

docs.google.com

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Everyone’s doing it.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh

Closeup of the serrated crab claw, looking like an open jaw with teeth.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Spooky season also on the seashore. I’m guessing the vultures must have helped clean up the unfortunate pinniped — while the gulls had had a real feast of crab & crayfish, judging by the distribution of claws & shrimpy skulls.

Skull and scrap of dried hide of a seal or sea lion on sand.

The beak of a dead seabird, yellow and hooked with a red spot on the lower part. (Jaw?)

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Arguably better than Tuesday at the office.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Even the drive toward the coast was beautiful. Stopped at a friend’s place to meet the ducks, check in on my last remaining chicken (reunited with her birth flock), feed treats to the guardian alpaca & cuddle lambs. All in all a tremendously well-spent morning.

Moody sky and dark hills reflected in a silverblue reservoir.

White cloud bank rolling over a far wooded hill while the foreground brown pasture hills are in watery sunlight.

Five ducks, three black and two grey, in a straw-strewn pen.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

& it turned out to be just fabulous at the sea shore, great thunderous slapping breakers & shifting dramas of light. Brown pelicans flapping low, vultures circling on the thermals inland.

Got back to the car just as the first fat raindrops fell—surely every good British person’s ideal of grace.

Blue sky and layers of cloud over a sandy beach.

Mixed and shifting sky over the steely ocean and creating surf.

A line of seven pelicans flying low above the sea’s grey edge.

Threatening black sky in the distance, puffy white rainclouds nearer, over the empty sandy beach.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

😊

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

I remember specifically wearing that skirt because she liked it.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you! I do feel as though it needs to be written around.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Came upon a memory of me & little gran, the last time I visited her in the late ‘90s, walking along a lane at the foot of Shutlingsloe. Her ashes & those of her daughters (inc. my dear aunt, behind the camera as ever) are scattered near this spot. Much of what’s dearest to my heart in one photo.

Small, stooped lady in a raincoat and hat with Queen Elizabeth handbag seen from behind on a wintry country lane with a tall, thin woman with long red curls and a blowing skirt. Grey skies above, a rushing dark beck to one side. Green hill in background.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Perfect.

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Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

This may be the best one ever — & not only because I have deep ancestral biases toward Shutlingsloe. Is there a Stiles Cup (or Stiles Superleague) somewhere in the offing?

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