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David Higgins@davidhiggins.bsky.social |
944 followers 1090 following 365 posts
Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Leeds. Worried parent. Culture, climate change, justice. Nature writing. Birdwatching whenever possible.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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I’m old enough to remember the elation of the 1997 election result. I doubt I’ll feel the same tomorrow, but it will be a relief to see this atrocious government finally cast into the wilderness.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Nostalgia is a dangerous drug, I know, and both ecocritics and nature writers are sometimes guilty of it. But it's hard now to read this account of a hedge by the Victorian writer Richard Jeffries without a sense of loss. (From his essay 'The Pageant of Summer'.) #envhum
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Writing a paper about ecological loss and wonder, focusing especially on Rachel Carson and the British authors who influenced her and whom she influenced. I think it's a rich topic but also making me even more worried about the low insect numbers we're seeing this spring. #envhum
1 replies 2 reposts 19 likes
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Daniella M.
@farsouthhistory.bsky.social
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Check out Anne Pasek's review of Caroline Levine's "The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis," published in 2023 @princetonupress.bsky.social; review now available on H-Net #envhum #ecocrit #envjustice #climate #envhist
www.h-net.org/reviews/show...
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Despite fine weather, I've hardly seen a bee or a butterfly over the last few days. I'm reminded of John Burnside's poem 'Travelling South': 'We've been going at this for years: / a steady delete / of anything that tells us what we are'. #restorenaturenow #envhum
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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And I still got the essay's title wrong...
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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3rd attempt to publish this post without typos...
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Just came across an amazing essay: 'The Lost Wood' (1925) by H. M. Tomlinson. It describes the environmental effects of new roads following the advent of the motor car: 'petrol is even dissolving the face of the English landscape'. Rachel Carson was a fan. #envhum ibiblio.org/eldritch/hmt...
2 replies 9 reposts 30 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Yep — Stainburn. Good luck!
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Poppy Leeder
@poppyleeder.bsky.social
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It's #ShowYourStripes day, so here's mine for Leeds in the UK
You can produce stripes for where you live at showyourstripes.info
1 replies 5 reposts 11 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Thank you Eline! I won't lie: it's pretty nice. Sorry to miss you and hope all's well.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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The Sainte Lucie nature reserve near Port-la-Nouvelle. Avocets, black-winged stilts, nightingales, turtle doves, various terns and gulls... Also some new birds for me: kentish plover, melodious warbler, zitting cisticola. #birds
0 replies 1 reposts 7 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Just walked through central Perpignan for 30 minutes from my hotel to the station. 100s of common (also pallid?) swifts screaming above me the whole way. Just lovely. #birds
1 replies 1 reposts 12 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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En route to Perpignan for the #EASLCE Sea More Blue conference. Will be giving a paper on how scientific climate projections impact on a personal level, and the wonder and dread elicited by contemplating rapidly changing coastal ecosystems. #envhum
1 replies 2 reposts 6 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Glad to say that they did emerge and provided excellent views before it got too dark. A couple of squeaking-grunting woodcocks also flew by. Earlier, saw siskins, green and greater spotted woodpeckers, various warblers, and a tree pipit.
1 replies 1 reposts 6 likes
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John MacNeill Miller
@snarlsdickens.bsky.social
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My book has a cover—and I’m in love with it! *The Ecological Plot: How Stories Gave Rise to a Science* comes out from UVA press in September! #envhum #histsci #sts
5 replies 19 reposts 65 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Once again I find myself standing in a gloomy conifer plantation, getting eaten alive by midges, as the sky darkens and I wait in hope that the nightjars will emerge. #birds #ukbirding
1 replies 1 reposts 18 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Family visit to North Landing, Flamborough at the weekend for the puffin festival. Lots of auks, gannets, gulls, and house martins. Neither child is that keen on sand, which is a bit of a problem on the beach, but they did enjoy the sea and the ice cream. #birds #ukbirding
0 replies 6 reposts 33 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Just witnessed a brutal fight between two male blackbirds. I was just a few feet away but they were too busy trying to murder each other to care. Nature red in tooth and beak. #birds
0 replies 1 reposts 5 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Good luck! Interesting to learn about their similarities. I need to do some more research…
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Wow! I don't know much about the Australasian bittern although they look pretty similar to the Eurasian one. Amazing birds in any case.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Thanks -- that's a good point re breeding conditions. I was talking to someone yesterday about the lack of passage waders. Didn't see a single one at Rutland Water on Sunday or at several sites in East Anglia at the start of this week.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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2024 BirdTrack reporting rate for bitterns is high and *may* support reports that they are having a good spring. (Although historical data go back far.) I heard booming in various East Anglian locations this week. And I had a great view of one in flight: such a charismatic species. #UKbirding #birds
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Thank you. I hear that they are doing very well in Somerset. I need to visit!
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Spent yesterday in Norfolk interviewing a couple of people for my bittern project and seeing a lot of birds. Stone curlews, hobbies, cuckoos, cranes, firecrest, bittern, etc. Also my first ever singing woodlark (quite beautiful) and a swallowtail (Strumpshaw Fen). #UKbirding #birds
1 replies 4 reposts 38 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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I am lucky to live not too far from Bolton abbey, where they both breed. Wood warblers used to be there too but I’ve not had any luck in recent years. ☹️
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Very early start rewarded with some good birding today. Osprey, hobbies, cuckoo and Savi’s warbler (heard) at Rutland Water. Farmland birds including corn bunting and turtle dove in Bedfordshire, plus several nightingales. Up at 3 tomorrow for stone curlews…. #UKbirding #birds
0 replies 3 reposts 22 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Bolton Abbey / Strid Woods last weekend. Beautiful as ever. Spotted and pied flycatchers showing well. Common sandpipers, dippers, goosanders along the river. Distant cuckoo heard. #birds #UKbirding
1 replies 2 reposts 16 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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I did too, for many years. Feels good to return. Hence I was out at 5am this morning listening to nightingales!
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Lovely dawn chorus at a site in Bedfordshire this morning, including cuckoos, turtle doves, and nightingales. Most birds remained deep in the scrub but one nightingale very kindly positioned himself at the top of a tree. First time I’ve had a good view of one singing. #birds #UKbirding
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Poppy Leeder
@poppyleeder.bsky.social
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As a 🖕to Sunak and his disgusting government, I'm doing what I can to help #swifts in the face of govt inaction.
If you are in #Leeds and would like a free external swift box with integrated speaker, let me know. I have 4 to give away to anyone wanting to help these wonderful birds.
1 replies 11 reposts 19 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Thanks Ian!
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Many thanks for the link
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Thank you! I need to read more of her work. Am starting with the sense of wonder.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Sounds great: I look forward to reading! (No pressure: but if you felt able to email me an advance copy, I'm at d.higgins@leeds.ac.uk)
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Dave Vetter
@davidrvetter.bsky.social
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"I have never seen such brazen cruelty toward students and faculty, such cowardice before what amounts to a right-wing witch hunt, and such blatant dishonesty" - an absolutely incendiary letter from historian Robin Kelley to Columbia U's President.
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Dr. Genevieve Guenther
@doctorvive.bsky.social
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So I was supposed to deliver the keynote at a Columbia symposium on climate and language this Friday, but I have informed the organizers that, with true sorrow, I am pulling out because I will not be associated with this university at this political moment. 🧵
33 replies 261 reposts 1135 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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I'd like to teach it and can imagine it working well. I might set the opening chapter + some selections on a second-year core course on literature and the environment. Thanks for mentioning the illustrations: I'll check out that edition.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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cheers ian: when's the article out?
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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I’ve been rereading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962). Amazing (and depressing) how much it still resonates. I'm not sure its combination of lyricism and rigour has ever been bettered. Might write something on how it was influenced by, and influenced, British nature writing. #envhum
4 replies 2 reposts 25 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Suburban hedgehog!
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Spring squill on the Anglesey coast. #wildflowerhour
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Pictures from a recent trip to North Wales and Anglesey. Fantastic to see choughs for the first time. Many migrants, including grasshopper and sedge warblers, redstarts, pied flys, swifts, wheatears, and whimbrels. Also ravens and a bonus hooded crow at South Stack. #UKbirding #birds
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Glad to hear it! Perhaps I'm worrying unduly -- they must congregate around farms and wetlands where insects are more plentiful. Very few insects in my area at the moment: just been too cold.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Another cold morning but a good dawn chorus in Adel, including greenfinch, goldcrest, and nuthatch. Worried for all the hirundines that have turned up in the UK and need insects. Seem in short supply at the moment. #UKbirding
1 replies 1 reposts 8 likes
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Very early start tomorrow morning to travel to North Wales for fieldwork and interviews for my bittern project. (Also some birding, of course.) Pretty excited. Hoping to see choughs for the first time too.
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Nice to see some bluebells near Adel Church this evening, although the weather was cold, damp, and decidedly unspringlike. Birdsong as muted as the weather. Hints of chiffchaff and blackcap. Saw a kestrel arrowing over the church. #birds #UKbirding
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Steve Dudley
@stevedudley.bsky.social
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Bluesky is a dynamic site for UK birders. The Feeds function is seeing birders come together and share more than I ever saw on Twitter. Thanks to @jamiedunning.bsky.social (#ukbirding) and @wilsonjaredm.bsky.social (#birdingScotland) these two feeds are scooping up all our local tags. Just ace!
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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Managed to visit on a rare non-rainy day!
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David Higgins
@davidhiggins.bsky.social
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I think I would have found it really useful when I started birding a few years ago.
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