Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nicola Pitchford

@npitchford.bsky.social

5.4K followers 1.8K following 5.3K posts

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

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

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

7 15 76

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 3h

I am so sorry. What an extraordinary & appalling thing for your child to have to manage. x

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 4h

If you thought an unchecked genocide was bad (& it IS)...

Experts predict that in the next 5 years, "U.S. funding cuts could result in more than 14 million [avoidable] deaths, including more than 4.5 million children under age 5." This is unspeakable, gratuitous, ideological evil.

Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 18h

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 4h

AArrrgh Don I'm still at the office...

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 4h

Am drowning in my own saliva send help pls

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 4h

Why would I read a huge thread about cheese at the maximum snack-hunger time of day? Why? 😫

2 9

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 4h

YES

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 5h

I can't bend my mind around the fact that it's LABOUR doing this. All the absolute worst MAGA/MAHA shit, and Starmer's just welcoming it eagerly in for the UK.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 5h

Gentle hugs from here too. And fuming rage.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 6h

Mystery link?

Reposted by Nicola Pitchford

Duchess Goldblatt @duchessgoldblatt.bsky.social · 4d

Little less conversation, little more ritualistic dancing in the moonlit forest to ward off evil, please.

17 54 360

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 12h

✊🏼

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 12h

I have made several real friends, discovered ongoing creative community, & (pardon me for 📯 but) learned about & subsequently won a major writing prize!

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 14h

Timeless!

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 14h

Anyone else sometimes randomly think about Fenton & have a chuckle?

2 7

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 15h

Out walking under the harvest moon, jackrabbits at my feet.

A geometric receding tunnel of clouds reflected in blue water, with lights twinkling on the dark far shoreline.

1 16

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

That's so kind of you — thank you.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

(Thinks wistfully for the ten-thousandth time:) If only it could always be early morning.

Creamy full moon in soft pink sky over dry grass hills.

Panoramic view over black dawn hills to a line of golden-orange light at the horizon and a glimpse of silver-lavender water.

1 1 23

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

That heavy, blunted-teardrop shape — the pale disc —

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Magic happening this morning, as a wam breeze begins. I’m watched by a still deer-silhouette on the ridge & a barn owl — a pair of barn owls! — passes silently over me six, seven times. I have never seen barn owls outside of English farmland before!

Line of fiery orange dawn glow over black hills. A cloudless navy-grey sky stretches above.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

(I’ve heard them here many times but only ever see the Great Horned Owls.)

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

1 25

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Went out with the moon & Venus, my friend Orion overhead, a silent owl passing low. After a still night, yesterday’s warm air still hanging in the hollows.

Moon barely peeping from behind a low leafy oak silhouetted on a sloping. Ridge. Dark navy sky.

Reposted by Nicola Pitchford

Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 2d

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

130 5.2K 15K

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 1d

Moonshadows this morning. And a coffee cup.

Paper blind drawn down across a window with the shadows of a leafy branch. Coffee cup dimly visible on the windowsill.

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 2d

Fabulous expression!

Nicola Pitchford @npitchford.bsky.social · 2d

Oh GOD yes 🤩