Nicola Pitchford
@npitchford.bsky.social
Immigrant. Winner of the inaugural Nature Chronicles Prize (2022). She/her. In Northern California on unceded Coast Miwok land.
Pinned
Nicola Pitchford
@npitchford.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...
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
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...
And of course, because the American West always demands the dumped wreckage of a truck & some fool with a gun…
November 25, 2025 at 4:34 PM
And of course, because the American West always demands the dumped wreckage of a truck & some fool with a gun…
This great, wild, astonishing landscape with its massive forces & fierce beauties. Its meagre blossoms, its nests woven windproof among thorns. Walking this morning on moist sand where bobcat & ‘yote & who-knows-who have left their tracks before me. Marvelling.
November 25, 2025 at 4:31 PM
This great, wild, astonishing landscape with its massive forces & fierce beauties. Its meagre blossoms, its nests woven windproof among thorns. Walking this morning on moist sand where bobcat & ‘yote & who-knows-who have left their tracks before me. Marvelling.
Reposted by Nicola Pitchford
We've signed this important letter calling for economic justice ahead of the Budget.
A coalition of 18 faith organisations has released a joint statement urging Chancellor Rachel Reeves to raise and reform taxes on wealth in Wednesday’s Budget 💼
Read the full statement here: https://justmoney.org.uk/news/faith-groups-call-for-bold-tax-reforms-to-rebuild-country/
Read the full statement here: https://justmoney.org.uk/news/faith-groups-call-for-bold-tax-reforms-to-rebuild-country/
November 25, 2025 at 10:35 AM
We've signed this important letter calling for economic justice ahead of the Budget.
Reposted by Nicola Pitchford
Beautiful piece about a group of young people who ignored the cynics, critics and gatekeepers and just cracked on restoring nature, bringing as many people as they could along for the ride.
"Action, access and agency".
You want a rural revival? This is it.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Action, access and agency".
You want a rural revival? This is it.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘It fully changed my life!’ How young rewilders transformed a farm – and began a movement
At Maple Farm, nature is returning in droves: nightingales, grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects. All due to the vision of a group determined to accelerate its recovery
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Beautiful piece about a group of young people who ignored the cynics, critics and gatekeepers and just cracked on restoring nature, bringing as many people as they could along for the ride.
"Action, access and agency".
You want a rural revival? This is it.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
"Action, access and agency".
You want a rural revival? This is it.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
That desert sky again. OH & his camera making overnight time-lapse amazement…. I never tire of this wonder.
November 25, 2025 at 4:59 AM
That desert sky again. OH & his camera making overnight time-lapse amazement…. I never tire of this wonder.
The kind of hopeful, thoughtful creativity that brings me deep joy on this site. Meeting people where they are, making beauty & offering education & accessible actions; artists + scientists + biodiversity activism + beer. 💚
With the goal of reaching new ppl w/biodiversity action, we're expanding the Native Plant Project to bars. We're calling it Biodiversity Beers.
In collab w/artists Marian Bailey, @hanfranstudio.bsky.social, & @the666cat.bsky.social, we're making pint glasses that encourage planting of native 🌱
In collab w/artists Marian Bailey, @hanfranstudio.bsky.social, & @the666cat.bsky.social, we're making pint glasses that encourage planting of native 🌱
November 25, 2025 at 2:06 AM
The kind of hopeful, thoughtful creativity that brings me deep joy on this site. Meeting people where they are, making beauty & offering education & accessible actions; artists + scientists + biodiversity activism + beer. 💚
Someday I'll write the story of this David Shepherd painting, which hung over the mantel in my childhood home & shaped my perceptions of place & beauty—& its long journey as one of those painful contested objects in split families...eventually resurfacing in an auction-house in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
November 25, 2025 at 1:26 AM
Someday I'll write the story of this David Shepherd painting, which hung over the mantel in my childhood home & shaped my perceptions of place & beauty—& its long journey as one of those painful contested objects in split families...eventually resurfacing in an auction-house in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
I may sound like a broken record on this but that's the nature of trauma: every one of these children will be traumatized for life. For life.
My own separation from my mother via immigration was just about the gentlest imaginable version... and it's still the central truth of my adult life. I'm 60.
My own separation from my mother via immigration was just about the gentlest imaginable version... and it's still the central truth of my adult life. I'm 60.
NEW: Today we published a new investigation into something happening largely out of view: immigrant kids getting separated from their families and placed in federal shelters, in some cases after something as mundane as a traffic stop🧵 1/
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
ICE Sent 600 Immigrant Kids to Detention in Federal Shelters This Year. It’s a New Record.
Under a zero tolerance policy, the first Trump administration separated immigrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. New data suggests separations are happening all over the count...
www.propublica.org
November 25, 2025 at 12:27 AM
I may sound like a broken record on this but that's the nature of trauma: every one of these children will be traumatized for life. For life.
My own separation from my mother via immigration was just about the gentlest imaginable version... and it's still the central truth of my adult life. I'm 60.
My own separation from my mother via immigration was just about the gentlest imaginable version... and it's still the central truth of my adult life. I'm 60.
Random, shallow gingerpost: Just as I remember my mother saying before me, my feeling is that I don't mind going grey — what I mind is not being a redhead any more. It's such an identity.
(Yes, I know there's dye/henna/Manic Panic. But I really don't want to go on being bothered with that.)
(Yes, I know there's dye/henna/Manic Panic. But I really don't want to go on being bothered with that.)
November 24, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Random, shallow gingerpost: Just as I remember my mother saying before me, my feeling is that I don't mind going grey — what I mind is not being a redhead any more. It's such an identity.
(Yes, I know there's dye/henna/Manic Panic. But I really don't want to go on being bothered with that.)
(Yes, I know there's dye/henna/Manic Panic. But I really don't want to go on being bothered with that.)
Standing at the head of the canyon where the trail ends, for the first time (in dozens of visits to this spot) I can hear the creek in the next arroyo/dip over, rushing. The autumn rains have been really good.
November 24, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Standing at the head of the canyon where the trail ends, for the first time (in dozens of visits to this spot) I can hear the creek in the next arroyo/dip over, rushing. The autumn rains have been really good.
Today’s Best Photograph of All Time.
November 24, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Today’s Best Photograph of All Time.
The sunrise light on the desert mountains is cleaning out all the accumulated gunk inside me.
November 24, 2025 at 2:47 PM
The sunrise light on the desert mountains is cleaning out all the accumulated gunk inside me.
Things I saw from the highway today:
Mist rising from irrigation canals
The new sun like a furious eye between lids of cloud
A crow perched on a warning sign, indifferent to what it might portend
A white egret in a ditch
Two dark coyotes trotting across a sunrise pasture
Mist rising from irrigation canals
The new sun like a furious eye between lids of cloud
A crow perched on a warning sign, indifferent to what it might portend
A white egret in a ditch
Two dark coyotes trotting across a sunrise pasture
November 23, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Things I saw from the highway today:
Mist rising from irrigation canals
The new sun like a furious eye between lids of cloud
A crow perched on a warning sign, indifferent to what it might portend
A white egret in a ditch
Two dark coyotes trotting across a sunrise pasture
Mist rising from irrigation canals
The new sun like a furious eye between lids of cloud
A crow perched on a warning sign, indifferent to what it might portend
A white egret in a ditch
Two dark coyotes trotting across a sunrise pasture
Soft sky this morning; soft sky this evening. I’m grateful.
November 23, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Soft sky this morning; soft sky this evening. I’m grateful.
In honour of Tina’s 75th, here’s the aftermath of me flipping buttery lobster off my plate onto Chris Frantz’s lap & them both still being gracious to OH & me. Back when the very fabulous TW was about 60.
November 22, 2025 at 10:02 PM
In honour of Tina’s 75th, here’s the aftermath of me flipping buttery lobster off my plate onto Chris Frantz’s lap & them both still being gracious to OH & me. Back when the very fabulous TW was about 60.
HECK it’s Miles’s birthday. Miles makes great pins.
November 22, 2025 at 9:38 PM
HECK it’s Miles’s birthday. Miles makes great pins.
My unlikely, late-in-life love affair with three-cornered wild leek continues.
November 22, 2025 at 5:26 PM
My unlikely, late-in-life love affair with three-cornered wild leek continues.
Did not want to go for a run. Went. Rewards level: enchanted forest.
November 22, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Did not want to go for a run. Went. Rewards level: enchanted forest.
Much of the mellow fruitfulness may have passed, but the soft mists remain in the ascendancy this lovely shining morning.
November 22, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Much of the mellow fruitfulness may have passed, but the soft mists remain in the ascendancy this lovely shining morning.
It’s incredibly distressing to watch the UK threaten to give up what small measure of generosity & social commitment was left from the postwar understanding of common good. It was one of the few things that made me feel patriotic.
Benefits have already grown violently meagre. To restrict them more—
Benefits have already grown violently meagre. To restrict them more—
November 22, 2025 at 2:22 PM
It’s incredibly distressing to watch the UK threaten to give up what small measure of generosity & social commitment was left from the postwar understanding of common good. It was one of the few things that made me feel patriotic.
Benefits have already grown violently meagre. To restrict them more—
Benefits have already grown violently meagre. To restrict them more—
Even to me, as someone with partial anosmia, this is brilliant and fantastic.
New Mexico is the only state to have a “state smell”
A bunch of grade school kids said that roasting green chile should be our state smell so their teacher had them write our state Congress and in a shocking display they all came together, wrote the bill, and passed it in a matter of weeks
A bunch of grade school kids said that roasting green chile should be our state smell so their teacher had them write our state Congress and in a shocking display they all came together, wrote the bill, and passed it in a matter of weeks
November 22, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Even to me, as someone with partial anosmia, this is brilliant and fantastic.
Out here before work, finding new secret valleys to love, new hills to which my legs can carry me (new deer to say hi to & immediately regret it because they then run away). Here, I recover.
November 21, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Out here before work, finding new secret valleys to love, new hills to which my legs can carry me (new deer to say hi to & immediately regret it because they then run away). Here, I recover.
Reposted by Nicola Pitchford
They feck you up your rhyming prompts
They mean to and they do
They fill you full of all their
Caesurae
Then add enjambement
Just for you
But they were fecked up in their turn
By weird tech bros in polo necks
Who half the time are raving mad
And half Nazi Hitlermechs
They mean to and they do
They fill you full of all their
Caesurae
Then add enjambement
Just for you
But they were fecked up in their turn
By weird tech bros in polo necks
Who half the time are raving mad
And half Nazi Hitlermechs
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 21, 2025 at 9:41 AM
They feck you up your rhyming prompts
They mean to and they do
They fill you full of all their
Caesurae
Then add enjambement
Just for you
But they were fecked up in their turn
By weird tech bros in polo necks
Who half the time are raving mad
And half Nazi Hitlermechs
They mean to and they do
They fill you full of all their
Caesurae
Then add enjambement
Just for you
But they were fecked up in their turn
By weird tech bros in polo necks
Who half the time are raving mad
And half Nazi Hitlermechs
Took me a moment to realise this was horse + deer, not some monstrous creature with massive claws. Which is just as well, given how far into the woods I currently am (& how slow).
November 21, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Took me a moment to realise this was horse + deer, not some monstrous creature with massive claws. Which is just as well, given how far into the woods I currently am (& how slow).
Friday dawn. I love the way distant water, even a sliver of it, welcomes light before the land does, holds it after the land has slipped back into darkness, the last believer in its return.
November 21, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Friday dawn. I love the way distant water, even a sliver of it, welcomes light before the land does, holds it after the land has slipped back into darkness, the last believer in its return.