Tim Holt-Wilson
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timholtwilson.bsky.social
Tim Holt-Wilson
@timholtwilson.bsky.social
730 followers 310 following 960 posts
The story of the Earth - geoconservation, museums, the poetry of things old & wild - based in East Anglia, UK.
https://futureheritage.wordpress.com/
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timholtwilson.bsky.social
A bit of a mouthful at midnight! Excuse my ignorance but do Smooth Newts have teeth to meet this kind of chewy challenge?
@arc-trust.bsky.social #newts #amphibians #Suffolk
A Smooth Newt Lissotriton vulgaris eating an earthworm on an old, damp concrete path at night The newt is dark brown and the worm is pink, and measures about a third of the length of the newt's body
February 11, 2026 at 11:55 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Found trudging around Dunwich Museum, a Cream-Spot Tiger moth (Arctia villica) caterpillar is filled with hairy, larval enthusiasm for the warm, damp weather and (one day) eating dead-nettles & dandelions.
@discoverdunwich.bsky.social @suffolkmoths.bsky.social
A very hairy, black caterpillar about 4 cm long, with a reddish-brown head, is crawling across an old cardboard envelope.
February 11, 2026 at 6:35 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Sheltered under a pink umbrella, the hearts proliferated.
February 10, 2026 at 11:00 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Solar blue is reflected in the placid water of a Bodham pond while @norfolkponds.bsky.social minions strip its brambley banks bare of scrub. Great pond restoration works are under way this weekend. Work will resume on an even more thorny pond today.
A pond with its banks cleared of willow, bramble and thorn scrub. Blue sky is reflected in deeper blue colour on the pond surface. There are piles of brash in the background as well as people wearing day-glo reflective yellow tabards, two of whom can be seen reflected in the water. A pond in farmland with thickets invading its banks. A person with day-glow reflective yellow tabard is working with a saw nearby. There is a pile of brash on the right.
February 1, 2026 at 10:00 AM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Agile Frog - cautious 👍🏼
Moor Frog - cautious 👍🏼
Euro Tree Frog - sceptical 👎🏼

The renowned Sir Thos. Brown has things to say about Hyla arborea. Perhaps Sedimentary Ancient DNA techniques could investigate 'ghost pond' sediment profiles for any frog signatures @norfolkponds.bsky.social
A quotation from Book 3 of Sir Thomas Brown's work 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica' (1686 edition). "Concerning the generation of frogs, we shall briefly deliver that account which observation hath taught us. By Frogs I understand not such as arising from putrefaction, are bred without copulation, and because they subsist not long, are called Temporariae. Nor do I mean a little frog of an excellent Parrot-green, that usually sits on trees and bushes and is therefore the Ranunculus viridis or Arboreous, but hereby I understand the the aquatile or Water Frog whereof in Ditches and standing Plashes we may behold many millions every spring in England.
January 29, 2026 at 1:11 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
HM Government. 'Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security. A national security assessment'. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0e...
Some people claim this is scaremongering or (worse) pure misinformation - a special place in Tartarus is reserved for them. 🧵
A photo of the UK from space, showing clear skies. Ireland is looking very green and the Scottish Highlands are looking craggy . The seas are dark blue, though pale green patches are showing through, possibly shallow water or sand banks. This is a European Space Agency image taken by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellite on 2nd April 2025. See https://www.copernicus.eu/en/media/image-day-gallery/clear-skies-over-uk-and-ireland.
January 26, 2026 at 9:16 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Served with little quails' eggs on a bed of puréed mushrooms - very subtle, very delicate.
January 26, 2026 at 7:49 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Who doesn't love the sea?
NB global sea levels have risen by c.10 cm (4“) since 1990, and the rate is now accelerating to >4 mm / year.
Watch out #NewYork #London #Bangkok #Tokyo #Shanghai...
What's our long-term strategy for coastal cities: protection, mitigation, denial of risk?
#climatechange
A rainstorm and rainbow tracking out off the Suffolk coast at Shingle Street, October 2013. In the foreground, a sailing boat with reefed sails is moving along the placid water of the Ore estuary. Banks of sand and shingle can be seen emerging from the water in the middle distance. Rain clouds tracking out off the Suffolk coast at Shingle Street, October 2013. Banks of sand and shingle can be seen emerging from the water in the middle distance; one of them is dotted by the white figures of gulls caught in a patch of sunlight.
January 26, 2026 at 3:27 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
What did rocks ever do for the Romans?
Lecture @romanroads.bsky.social tonight at 19:30.
Free entry.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-did-r...
@pavementgeology.bsky.social
A Roman road near Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland. It runs in a straight line up hill and down dale through a landscape of fields and trees.
January 22, 2026 at 10:52 AM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
"Have you ever wondered why Germans didn’t do anything about Hitler? Well, the rest of the world is wondering exactly that about Americans and Trump."
- Thanks @Strandjunker
A quotation from @Strandjunker on X-Twitter, 15th Jan 2026. A street scene showing displays of the Olympic and German (swastika) flags in Berlin, site of the summer Olympic Games. Berlin, Germany, August 1936. Image courtesy https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/the-nazi-olympics-berlin-1936-photographs
January 21, 2026 at 10:30 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Here it is reversed out. More intellible now. Presumably old church architectural elements recovered from the beach.
January 12, 2026 at 9:07 AM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Scanning the Docwra Collection of early C20th photos at Dunwich Museum, UK, is yielding fresh images of ship's ballast in the walls of now-vanished All Saints' Church; also geological specimens & palaeoliths now sadly missing from the collection - also a bizarre rubble pic which begs interpretation!
A black & white photo view through doorway arch of the ruined church of All Saints' Church, Dunwich. The clifftop and sea beyond can be seen in the distance. The walls are made of rubble boulders - they would presumably once have been plastered. A museum collection of rocks and fossils. Mammuthus meridionalis teeth and a proximal femoral ball can be seen, among other fossils collected from local beaches. A black & white photo of a small collection of five flints, including an Acheulian biface. It is not clear whether the other specimens show signs of human working. A black & white photo of a very strange object looking like some sort of rock.
January 11, 2026 at 9:52 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Was the potential for Fascism always implicit in US democracy?

“The Fascist State expresses the will to exercise power and to command. Here the Roman tradition is embodied in a conception of strength. Imperial power, as understood by the Fascist doctrine, is not only territorial, or military, or...
January 11, 2026 at 8:15 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Part of Common is golf course (enough said). Acid heath has gorse, ant hills, sheep's sorrel, Picus viri. Rest has warblers, sparhawk, woodcock in winter, plenty of insect life in damp grassland. Usual crows, pigeons, pheasants but rabbits are getting rarer. Need to do bio survey to inform the PC.
Aerial photo of south-eastern part of Stuston Common, imagery courtesy of Google Earth, 2025. The A143 cuts across the site, with a roundabout top left. Stretches of the old A143 and intersecting B1118 are visible as abandoned roads across the Common. There is a grassy field near the bottom of the picture, otherwise the view shows a patchwork of grassy and scrubby areas. Trees are in full leaf, so it is summertime.
January 11, 2026 at 10:36 AM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Here is the raw stuff in the landscape:
* Lowestoft Till in a road cutting,
* LT in a quarry,
* LT in the sides of a ditch,
* LT in ploughsoil.
#Pleistocene #glacial #geology #geodiversity 🌏
A cutting excavated into the Lowestoft Till while making the Haughley bypass, Suffolk, 2007. There is about 15 ft / 5 m of blue-grey till overlying a pale orange sand. The cutting is fenced off with red and white tape. A row of fence post above the cutting help give an idea of scale. The wall of Timworth quarry, Suffolk, c.2004. The cutting is some 12 ft / 4 m high and shows a mass of blue-grey chalky till (the Lowestoft Till) which has glaciotectonically distorted a layer of sand which has been pushed into an anticlinal structure. A standing person in a blue jacket and red hat gives some indication of scale. A ditch at Withersdale Street, Suffolk. It has recently been cleaned out to reveal blue-grey chalky Lowestoft Till with an overlying brown weathered horizon. There is a field of growing cereals in the background with a hedge in the distance. It is plateau land. A view of a yellow-painted farm house and barns at Weybread, Suffolk, seen across a ploughed field developed on a weathered surface of Lowestoft Till. It is winter time, and the trees in the distance are leafless. It is plateau land.
January 10, 2026 at 9:47 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
"The grace of withered things" (Mallarmé). Aged Suffolk farm houses flake & crumble, revealing materials of their making: bricks fired from clay; oak timber from woods; lath from coppiced hazel; plaster from clay & lime & animal hair; colour-wash from lime & ox blood - all of local origin.
A farmhouse wall from which the plaster has fallen, revealing laths of split hazel on which plaster was once daubed, all fixed to a structure of pink bricks and timber. A window frame is on the right - it does not have glass but instead closely-set horizontal wooden bars painted black with (probably) tar varnish; some bars are missing. There is an iron rainwater pipe descending from a gutter somewhere out of picture; it terminates in a diagonal pipe backed by a wooden board to direct water away from the building's fabric. An old door of plain manufacture painted with black tar varnish, now well weathered. It is set into a wall made of lath & plaster then coated with plaster and pink lime-wash. Chunks of plaster have fallen off, revealing a pattern of horizontal laths with some diagonal ones surrounding the door frame. The wall is set on brick footings. Rookery Farm at Westhorpe, Suffolk, 1988. The photo shows a decayed farmhouse with a long, rectangular shape, with a single brick-built chimney surmounting a pink tiled roof. The nearest half of the building may once have been a dwelling as it looks like a house with windows, though the windows have been replaced by wooden bars suggested it has been adapted for storage or livestock. The other half of the building has no windows but three black painted doors - they may be workshops or store-rooms. The encroaching bushes on the left and piles of hardcore at the foot of the wall suggest the building is neglected. It will be sold and turned into a desirable residence.
January 10, 2026 at 9:12 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
* Clay lump in situ.
* A rammed clay wall.
* Clay lump interior walling.
* A clay-lump cottage built in the 1920s.
A clay lump wall of a 19th century cottage at Knettishall, Suffolk. The locally-sourced glacial till clay has been puddled with straw then left to dry in blocks. Each block weighs about 60 lbs. Grey, chalky clay and bits of flint can be seen in this picture. The mortar between the blocks is made from locally made lime, manufactured fro local chalk bedrock which underlies the till. The broken end of a 19th / 18th century farmyard wall at Finningham, Suffolk, made of rammed clay puddled with chopped straw. The wall was made by compacting clay by treading it down between shuttering boards. The wall is covered with white painted plaster. It is leaning outwards so has been buttressed in brick, again coated in white plaster. The interior of a cottage at Blo' Norton, Norfolk built of clay lump and lime plaster. The walls can be seen made of pale yellow-grey clay, and some orange and green builder's buckets and a window frame are leaning against the wall on the right. The exterior of a cottage at Blo' Norton, Norfolk, built of clay lump and lime plaster on brick footings. It was built in the 1920s by the local council, and was one of the last ever made using this vernacular technique. The architectural effect is pleasing and the weather is sunny. The walls are rendered with lime plaster but not yet painted. The roof is made of red tiles and has a black and white painted dormer window. There is a small porch built of similar materials. A small truck is parked in the driveway on the left.
January 10, 2026 at 8:03 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
The arithmetics of glacial till from the Suffolk plateau: Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay + Cretaceous Chalk + Pliocene Crag + Pleistocene erratics from W Midlands, E Midlands, Pennines, Northumbria, Scotland, N Sea, etc, mashed under a colossal ice sheet = the Lowestoft Till.
It's a beast of a deposit.
A lump of Lowestoft Till from Finningham, Suffolk. The matrix is grey with brown mottlings and is studded with lumps of white chalk. The overall effect is rough and craggy. Image courtesy megwildlflowers@bsky.social. An excavated hole about 1.5 deep in Lowestoft Till subsoil at Finningham, Suffolk. The till is grey at depth and has a paler, weathered and partly decalcified yellow-brown surface layer. There are pebbles of chalk visible. Image courtesy megwildlflowers@bsky.social.
January 10, 2026 at 4:47 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Stuston Common today - part golf course, part scrubbed-up zone where sandy soil meet clayland and nobody manages the land: natural reversion after 1000+ years of commons management and subsistence care. The story of C20th forgetting: no grazing and not managed for #biodiversity. Manorial waste.
A disused road with white stripes down the middle flanked by encroaching thorn scrub and mosses along the road side. Winter time. An area of rough grassland on poorly-draining, clayey soils with patches of Soft Rush, St John's Wort and Lesser Knapweed. There are ash trees in the distance. In is winter time. A former acid heathland area on sandy soils which has been allowed to tumble down to thorn and elder bushes. Mosses and nettles form a miserable ground flora. An extract from the 6" OS map 1886 showing the southern part of Stuston Common, Suffolk, including The Lodge (a C19th building) and the Hall and associated mediaeval moats. The common is mapped as open heathland.
January 10, 2026 at 3:16 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
A lovely mural at Stroud reminding us about the Eurasian Curlew - a most beautiful bird - and the life-giving subsoil it feeds on. Its taxon name Numenius arquata reminds me of some ancient Italic king. The mural lifts our spirits towards springtime. @curlewaction.bsky.social @btobirds.bsky.social
A painted mural depicting a Curlew and its chick in a grassy field with buttercups and knapweds blown by the wind. The soil and grassroots is shown underfoot. A painted mural om the end wall of a house depicting a Curlew and its chick in a grassy field with soil underfoot. Two old red telephone boxes and some street signs stand nearby. A detail of the painted mural depicting flowering grasses and their roots in the soil through which a mole and worms are tunneling. A cranefly rests on a grass stalk. The artist's monogram 'ATM' is stenciled in red paint.
January 10, 2026 at 2:23 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
The Harling Drove from East Harling to Hockwold is a historic droving road across the predominantly sandy, unpondy Breckland.
An 1886 OS map showing a historic drove road crossing West Tofts Heath.
January 10, 2026 at 1:33 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Ivy, an unruly liana, scrambles through hedges and ramps up trees, attracting popular opprobrium. Its dark fruits tempt pigeons and thrushes to a hedgerow larder. First flecks of snow in 2026 float down. A hungry season settles on the Suffolk landscape. Flocks arrive.
Ivy branches with a few fruits remaining are silhouetted against a ragged sunset sky of pale yellow and blue. A bush of Ivy (Hedera helix) with one twig bearing fruit in the foreground and various twigs depleted of fruit in the background. A mature oak tree with ivy-girt trunk and limbs can be seen in the distance
January 3, 2026 at 6:54 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Yep.
'Insatiable' by Theodore Bolha and Chris Davis. It shows a gigantic, stooping, male human figure walking towards a cliff over which wild animals are fleeing. Skyscrapers and industrial installations are looming behind him. On his back is a hellscape of factories belching black smoke. He holds an uprooted tree in his right hand from which flocks of birds are escaping. His right hand is reaching down to grasp a fistful of earth. Drops of black oil are streaming from his hunched back. The whole scene has a disturbing and nightmarish quality
January 2, 2026 at 10:19 PM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
Earth heritage, like all phenomena, is experienced in a double-take which explores meanings both rational & imaginative, scientific & mythic. We ask both what it is in-itself and what is it for me. Can we language the world in a way equally valid for both? 🧵
A slice of porphyritic basalt showing large feldspar phenocrysts in a purplish matrix dotted with amygdales of blue and yellow minerals. It is was made from a glacial erratic found in Suffolk ploughsoil. It is a conjugation of attractive colours and visual contrasts. It is meaningful because it was found @megwildflowers.bsky.social as a pitted, brown, hand-sized lump of rock knocking about in ploughsoil, but on slicing revealed a beautiful mineralogy worth both scientific investigation and aesthetic appreciation. An esteemed specimen and geological companion. The colourful dust cover of the book 'Whispers of Rock. Stories from the Earth' by Anjana Khatwa, Bridge Street Press, London, 2025.
December 31, 2025 at 11:15 AM
timholtwilson.bsky.social
... while ignoring the pestilent congregation of AI monsters ...
'The sleep of reason produces monsters' by Francisco Goya. A man cowers when surrounded by a flock of bats and owls. An enigmatic lynx-like animal looks on, with crossed paws.
December 30, 2025 at 11:14 AM