Dr Anke Marsh
LightNews LightNews
banner
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Dr Anke Marsh
@ankemarsh.bsky.social
4.5K followers 3K following 2.6K posts
Palaeoecology, natural history, science, flora, fauna, microfossils. Researcher, writer, editor, photographer she/her

Also @lnhs.bsky.social for London based natural history
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Dr Anke Marsh @ankemarsh.bsky.social · 7d
Kiddo and I took a quick trip to Amsterdam. I may have taken *some photos. It is such a photogenic city, so walkable (despite the anarcho-cyclists 🤣), so delicious (think I gained a few kilos). Will do a thread, starting with photos from the train :)

*British understatement

#Photography
It was so foggy as we crossed France, Belgium and the Netherlands. I grabbed my phone for a few shots. This first shot, my camera decided to macro focus on the window. Oof. But I kinda liked the effect. The photo is in mono, with a very blurred landscape of grass, grey sky and ghostly trees. What is in focus is in the foreground - scratches and dirt on the train window. It gives an effect of a really old, madly preserved photo. This next photo is a similar scene, but the landscape is actually in focus. The grass is a dull green, stretching into the horizon, meeting the grey sky. There is a line of trees, starting from the right and stretching back into the horizon. Everything is shrouded in fog. A mon photograph of a farmhouse. Everything was still foggy and a bit dark, giving a slightly spooky effect. I added some grain to make it a bit spookier.
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
nicolawriting.bsky.social
Rare voices, & where we come from: the women in the firelit doorways: two great books from rural working class women’s lives …
caughtbytheriver.bsky.social Caught by the River @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social · 21h
[email protected]’s ‘Village’ & a re-issue of Mary Chamberlain’s ‘Fenwomen’ give voice to an otherwise largely silent corner of England, writes @nicolawriting.bsky.social, telling the evocative, hard-lived stories of rural working class women www.caughtbytheriver.net/2025/11/vill...
November 27, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
This holiday season, I'm thankful for our common backyard birds. Sometimes we take the common birds for granted, but the fact is we should be grateful they've adapted robustly to urban and suburban settings. Here are a few shots from this morning.
Golden-crowned sparrow on the ledge of a planter box talkin' shit about executioner sparrows while scarfing down black sunflower seeds. California scrub jay in lovely blues and whites with gray eye staring up at eternity from a fence, with the slates of a shed behind them. Also contemplating the peanuts I set out and figuring out how the hell to get all ten in their mouth at once. Executioner sparrow (aka junco) lost in the sauce with the dried millet I put out on the side of a planter box. Black head, white breast, brown wings. Oh shit, that's not a common birb that's a gray squirrel, the ultimate successful rodent in the world, eating a peanut I thoughtfully shelled for them so they wouldn't expend a calorie of their current winter plumpness.
November 26, 2025 at 4:43 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Fantastic thread

Love both of these accounts and it’s fun to see a combo of fashion and archaeology/ancient texts 😀😀

🏺#AncientBluesky
moudhy.bsky.social Moudhy Al-Rashid (she/her) @moudhy.bsky.social · 1d
I guess I now have to do a thread on shoes in ancient Mesopotamia in response to this (which happens to be from one of my favourite accounts).

I’m not an archaeologist, nor do I really know anything about shoes, but let’s go on this journey together.
dieworkwear.bsky.social derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 1d
can't believe this ancient mesopotamia shoe wearing ass said people need to dress up at the airport
November 26, 2025 at 7:17 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
How Louboutin of them, eh @dieworkwear.bsky.social 🤨

See, the ancient Mesopotamians were THE trendsetters :)))
moudhy.bsky.social Moudhy Al-Rashid (she/her) @moudhy.bsky.social · 1d
Recent studies have uncovered the vibrant colours that once covered ancient Assyrian palace reliefs.

Sandals were often red and black, two predominant colours in the reliefs of king Ashurnasirpal II’s palace at Nimrud.

Source: antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/sou...
Photo of a stone relief that has digitally re-colourised. It shows two people in profile facing left. Their garments have been re-coloured in blue and red, and their sandals in black and red. The figure on the left holds a bow and arrow and other weapons. The one on the right is a mythical creature with blue and red wings and a black beard. The creature holds a bucket in the left hand and pine cone in the right hand.
November 26, 2025 at 7:15 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Today’s photo is this #HolidayRobin who’s #OnTheEdge

Taken today in London

#BirdOfTheDay #Birds #Photography #EastCoastKin
A photo of a European robin. The photo is mostly in shadow, the the dark part of the woods. A bit of sunlight is shining through in the right and some branches are highlighted in the light. The branches are coming out from the right as well. The left is pitch black. There is a wee robin perched on the very edge of one of the branches, also lit up by the sunlight. He is facing to the left.
November 26, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
v-mann.bsky.social
My Stone!!
#BirdOfTheDay #ontheedge #wagtail #vogel #kwikstaart
November 26, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
knotweed-ireland.bsky.social
Bird of the day, 'I'm going in!' Mute Swan about to drop off the slipway into the water... Westmeath, Ireland. #BirdOfTheDay #Swan #OnTheEdge #Birds #Wildlife #Ireland #Nature #EastCoastKin #Photography #UKBirding
Mute Swan about to drop off the slipway into the water
November 26, 2025 at 11:22 AM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Sooo… pedestrians are supposed to go into the road?? 😳 (click and zoom in)

#RoadRepairs #Signs
A photograph of a street. On one side is a sign that says ‘Pedestrians’ with an arrow pointing to the left (towards the street. There is a ramp for wheelchairs. Glad they thought about less mobile people. On the opposite side of the street is an identical sign. Except that the arrow points right. To the street. I’m confused.
November 26, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
boothicus.bsky.social
Eaten, regurgitated, fossilised then recognised as the vomit fossil pterosaur. Will the indignities never cease?
jensfoell.de Dr. Jens Foell @jensfoell.de · 1d
Roses are red
That dino looks ill
Headline saying “Fossil vomit contains new species of pterosaur from Brazil”. For additional info apart from the joke, the sub-headed says: “Filter-feeding flying reptile was likely devoured by a dinosaur during the early Cretaceous”
November 25, 2025 at 10:28 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
I’ve got one saying hello!

#HolidayRobin #Birds
A photograph of a robin. This robin was quite deep in the woods. I almost didn’t see him! Saw some movement and took a quick snap, only to realise that he was trying to say hello! He is perched on a branch from some dead wood. He is facing forward so that his bright orange chest is on show, against the grey belly. One wing is out to the left.
November 25, 2025 at 8:49 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Hanging around - birds at unusual angles - is today’s theme. I’ve got to use my dangling crow. This one regularly flies from her nest in the cedar to a neighbour’s aerial to do her acrowbatic routine. Great fun to watch :))

#BirdOfTheDay #Birds #Crows
A photograph of a crow. But not any crow doing everyday crow things. This bird loves flying over to a nearby aerial to hang off it. In this photo, she is hanging by one claw onto the lower rung of the aerial. The aerial is attached to a long pole and has three parts to it. She is on the lowest part. Same crow, different day. Here she, hanging on to the lower part of the aerial. She is upright but barely hanging on, with her wings straight out. Same crow, yet another day. At some point, I realised that she wasn’t a klutz who couldn’t sit on this thing without falling off. She was actually doing this on purpose! Anyway, here she is hanging onto that lowest rung. With her beak! As you do. And in this final photo, she is shown in free fall. Not flying. Just letting herself fall straight down. She is an adrenaline junkie.
November 25, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
pacbirds.bsky.social
A yellow warbler heading down toward the creek for the #HangingAround theme of #BirdOfTheDay.

#birds #photography #birdphotography #birding #nature #warblers
Closeup shot of a yellow bird with red stripes on its breast hanging with its head down on a small vertical branch.
November 25, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
davemeredith.bsky.social
Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #HangingAround. Here's a male Eurasian Siskin that thinks it's a Nuthatch.

#EastCoastKin #PhotoHour #birds #birdphotography #wildlife #wildlifephotography #photography
November 25, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
rutgerbregman.com
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
November 25, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
lizzie-harper.bsky.social
Here's the second of the #botanicalillustration courses I'm teaching at #Cambridgeuniversity #botanicalgardens in the UK next year. This one is in May:

www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/education-le...

It's all about #illustrating #blue #flowers. Think #iris, #campanula, #bluebells....
Cut to white #sciart #botanicalillustration of one single #flower of the #bluebell #Hyacinthoides flower, showing pale stamens and recurved petals. Cut to white #naturalscienceillustration of the #Harebell #Campanula rotundifolia showing a specimen with a great many blooms at all angles, and linear as well as rounded leaves. Colour #diagram of the #structure of an #iris, #botanicalillustration #sciart #botany. Showing stamens, ovaries, pistil, and the organisation of the petals / sepals. #Shetchbook sheet on the #Nootka #lupin showing the #flower spike, cross section of a flower, bud, roots, #seedpod, seedling, #habitsketch and seeds. Cut to white #botanicalillustration
November 25, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
uclarchaeology.bsky.social
Prof David Wengrow @ucl.ac.uk Institute of #Archaeology has been awarded the prestigious J. I. Staley Prize for #Anthropological Excellence this year by @sarsf.bsky.social School of Advanced Research

Read More
📲 bit.ly/4riBQBy

@davidwengrow.bsky.social

📚 profiles.ucl.ac.uk/140-david-we...

1/3
Photo of Prof David Wengrow in a grey suit sitting in an office with a book case behind him. He is looking away from the camera. Photo credit - jamieson_nyt
November 24, 2025 at 11:02 AM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Apparently it’s #MallardMonday!

Here’s my contribution…

#Birds #LondonBirds #Splash! #EastCoastKin #Photography
A photograph of, erm, water splashes? Yep! The drakes had come out and decided to have baths and a good splash about. This is a shot taken about a millisecond after two drakes dove into the water. Yes, I was trying to get a photo of them actually diving but ho hum.
November 24, 2025 at 5:57 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
BotD theme is warblers, or alt any bird with yellow eyes. Will do one of each today - common white throat from the local reserve and a male goldeneye from London Wetlands Centre

#BirdOfTheDay #Birds #LondonBirds #Photography #EastCoastKin
A photograph of a common whitethroat on a thin oak branch. It is a small warbler, with grey feathers on top. Its wings also have some brown. Its underneath feathers are whiter, to very light grey. It’s perched on the branch, sideways, facing to the left. The leaves are light green and the sky is a light blue. The warbler has clocked me and doesn’t look too happy. A photograph of a goldeneye duck in the lake. It is mainly very very white, with black wings. There are white stripes (or maybe black stripes) along the wings. Its head is black but with pretty green iridescence on the top. He has a black beak and two perfectly round white spots on either side of his beak. His eyes are, you guessed it, golden! He is swimming towards me, and I’m feeling a bit judged by this bird.
November 24, 2025 at 5:33 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
#DoomscrollBreak

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
alan678.bsky.social Alan H @alan678.bsky.social · 3d
“ Hands up if you want more peanuts.” #HolidayRobin #photography #birds #EastCoastKin
A European robin stands on a mossy surface with one wing lifted high, as if stretching or mid-gesture. Its bright orange-red breast and face contrast with its soft grey and brown plumage. Behind it, blurred branches and fresh green leaves create a natural woodland backdrop, with tiny droplets still clinging to the twigs.
November 24, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
mattpope.bsky.social
Align it properly and it's totally a Winter Solstice-appropriate garden decoration for the festive season. ❄️🏺
cjfrieman.bsky.social Catherine Frieman @cjfrieman.bsky.social · 3d
Is that... is that an inflatable light up Stonehenge????

Oh no i want one
November 24, 2025 at 8:42 AM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
When I was a kid, maybe this was 1980?, I walked into the local record shop, Hungry Ear. I asked them to recommend decent music not the radio drivel. They sold me Bowie’s Scary Monsters and Blondie’s Parallel Lines. Mind blown. And I still love these albums.
dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 3d
Sounds magazine's top 20 albums of 1980.
November 23, 2025 at 10:43 PM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
keefry.bsky.social
My favorite bird photo just turned one year old 🥹❤️ Zoom in on the nuthatch's face and blow it a little kiss ✨
michaelfogleman.com Michael Fogleman @michaelfogleman.com · Nov 21
the camera is up against a tree trunk, looking straight up #birds
A White-breasted Nuthatch looking inside the crevasses of a tree trunk covered in lichen.
November 23, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Dr Anke Marsh
tatepaulette.bsky.social
Honored to receive the Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award this weekend at the @asor-research.bsky.social Annual Meeting
November 23, 2025 at 8:24 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Mr & Mrs - male and female of the same kind - is the theme today.

Mallards (he’s happy because hehehe, but see next pic), crow family and parents regretting life choices, and two coots still in the honey moon phase

#BirdOfTheDay #UKBirding #Birds #Wetlands #LondonBirds #Photography #EastCoastKin
A photograph of a pair of mallards on a lake. The drake has grey wing feathers, edged with black, a brown chest and a colourful head of green and blue. His beak is very yellow. He’s all puffed up because he just has some fun with his Mrs. The female is mottled brown with black, with a vivid purple-blue patch on her wings. She is shaking her tail a bit, trying to clean up afterwards I guess. A family photo gone wrong. It is of four crows in a line on a cricket field. One parent is at the front, she’s stopped and listening to her two screaming teens. They are in the middle, yelling and slapping their wings in a huff only teens can manage. The dad is at the back, looking as if he’s about to fly off to hang with his buddies. A photograph of two coots on a lake. They are black wetlands birds with white beaks and face shields, and with bright red eyes. They are facing each other, their heads overlapping and almost making a heart shape.
November 23, 2025 at 6:50 PM
ankemarsh.bsky.social
Something we all should do :) #DetoxDoodles!
joyousjoyness.com JoyousJoyfulJoyness @joyousjoyness.com · 3d
Detox Doodles!

This is my daily sketching habit in an effort to curb mindless scrolling.

This page is about bottlenose dolphins!

#art #dolphin #ocean #sketch #DetoxDoodles #sciart #InkArt
A sketchbook page of 4 drawings of bottlenose dolphins in blue pen. At the top is the text Bottlenose Dolphin and 6/15/25. At the top are two dolphins swimming in a circle with the text Flop! on the left and Jump! on the right. At the bottom is a closeup of a dolphin's face and a heart above it. To the right is a dolphin straight on with its right flipper outreached. There are a series of vertical diamonds on the right.
November 23, 2025 at 3:14 PM