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Dave Borthwick

@borthwickdave.bsky.social
4.8K followers 977 following 1.9K posts

Lecturer in Environmental Literature at the University of Glasgow's School of Social & Environmental Sustainability: ecopoetry, walking, place - environmental humanities

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Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 13h
october. sun low from the outset & moon high, changing places. friction of dry leaves, their papery withdrawal. damp of morning. damp of evening. sweet & deep reduction begins. hill constellations configure again. the sky is an old but unfamiliar language you learn again.
0213
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
& last of September false moon in cloudroil & skies churn out a pressure front the gather & break gone Michaelmas from here negotiations with dark
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Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
@netherfield34.bsky.social - are you OK? Your absence is noted...
120
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
& 3rd night in a row the ripped lead flashing on a fencepost is a robin, perched; the lane luminous blue as the town's light pollution starts to effervesce; across Solway the 80s kid in you finds a graphic equaliser (military grade), & in such gloom after a long day you go
0252
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
& 1st thing, mist levering up off the damp land (ghosts of watercourses), small moon falling towards flightpaths
0222
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
& learn to walk the dark again (haptics of gradient & turn firming up almost 9 months here), spare headlamp for moon (upper right rubbing away already) & it candles on the lochan (mallards burbling somewhere, kwik & quibble of tawny owl), dandelion clock running slow in final phase
1359
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
& caught out by early sunset moon already up when you set off strafed leaves feathering its telescopic view blackbirds dinking alarm in woods' underbrush lane through the farmyard flooded with light sky still & open to cold Venus a gritty garnet
0210
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
& the deep blue receding NE, pulling colour out from all it leaves behind
1211
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
& the changing front you lie awake as all the doors creak
0160
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
rolling billow of cloud but then september's full moon lit bright through a tear in the fabric
0260
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
ebbtide, between sea & tree filled with small, bitter apples - an oak that has grown horizontally creeps on soilless rock above headheight; receding strands feathers & ziplok bag of jellyfish, curlews begin to work the strand
0263
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
& the rashy field filled spills into gravity & pools hinge & returned mallards group (a sarcasm of) & the moon 1 night from full brims over
0254
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
& grey heron brings sky into the field to strut for pickings, doubles themselves on take-off & evening arrives early
0163
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
@thehoursgodsends.bsky.social - alerted the moon was up by indicator light in tatter
1180
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
& equinox settles to shed light before leaf, pink footed geese trickling in - moonrise through insect-strafed leaf (91%, moving clear), a small fire to mark the day
0273
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
& morning of the equinox, field below the house is low rumble & hoo as cows do dawn roll-call, steady rain & traffichiss from the main drag - but some promise SSE as cloud gives up the hill
0314
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
& sky thickens midafternoon, dingy light turning changing leaves grubby, but stirring in the bright moss base of the oak: treecreeper #birds
2234
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
& the coluring up to break down, a stunned aspect to everything at a time of waiting (bramble season over &, week of the equinox, 32 minutes' less light in 7 days) - a diving little grebe is all on the lochan, sun in the hedgerows at 17.30
0195
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
& the slightest glisk, that will do
0212
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
pristine shaggy inkcap
2263
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
hump-backed bridge, young cormorant - bill rivershingle offgrey - loitering, twists their head to notice, time to go
0152
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
pink footed geese, right out of the arctic circle & southing into morning, chorus of rusty saws working over towards the coast
0535
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
& out after moonset, out as pipistrelles emerge (a tawny owl birls down out of white sky on sight), at the lochan trees lay out to stretch where last light pools - heron's rawrk locates them set down to roost (you are both unsettled), from hilltop transmitter, smoking dark
0255
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
woken before light by the calls of pink footed geese: squeaky gate of autumn is open
1438
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
this morning, commute among corvids in claggy air, dew de-stealthing spiderwebs, exhale of dawn
0263
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
high tide of shallow pewter, water hard enough cormorant's takeoff steps stand, soft enough for little egret's bill; harvest eldeberries by the path, end-of-season speckled wood flittering, garden spider (inverted, big as a bramble) has found a niche they seal off with mist-net
0409
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
& the ditches gurgle 1st time in months, the lane filled with chaffinches gorging on haw & blown seed (curious calves follow a spell), hirundine hawking on the hill, & hornbeam levering keys to position for launch
0265
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
a strange, uncanny dusktime: light refracted & gauzy, sun nimbused - smoke from Canadian arctic fires, the news says, arriving over the Atlantic, makes for hazy & soft gloam, temperatures falling quickly
0336
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
& afternoon into evening post-knocker on the tractor's back makes a new fieldline, always blurred by dirty rain, soaked figures beetle back & forth, smell of mud & diesel reek, by the time it all eases they are gone
0214
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
& striding out touches roosting time now - quiet otherwise of birds - scissoreared hare catches light in their whiskers, hawthorn twines through beech (rare pairing), silverwater in ruts, over Solway signals berry on
0204
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
terrific mail day - trio of pamphlets by @eyesfront.bsky.social (& coverart poscards by anon.), requiring usual penknife surgery to extract as do all careful packages from @longbarrowpress.bsky.social
1183
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
& faint rainbow & bent grass windriffled waters & wildfire sky in high cool wind land reeking dark
0326
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
& as a red kite passes low militia of corvids peels out of the trees even swallows give chase
0233
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
& light in the slow decay: rust & catkin (the turning), swallows break wires through a ringfeeder brought out of storage, & in the field dug over for a new track rusted spur of a ploughblade pulled out of the dark
0164
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
in the fullbeams, 8 blazing stars level of the road: 4 feral kittens entering woods; pull up but there is nothing but wind in the trees, sky leeching light
1527
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
& at the crossroads this morning, watched swallows gather & break - as they do oftenyears until late-september - but when you get back to the house tonight find quiet skies, the housemartins quite gone
1294
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
& rain steady, humidity treetop height & rosebay bowed with small, cold lamps (tyreshush from the main drag washes uphill & you turn often to check behind you in the lane) - broken gutter of the pigeons' gappy barn gurgles & spills, uphill all is distant & introvert
2314
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
toad migration night - indigo sky spreads rain heavily & evenly - slalom around them encourage 2 sitters in the blind bend towards verge
0192
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
& last of august, wind dropping off & darkness rising out of the land by 20.15, corvids mooching & cawing before roost, & glimmers & flickers as lights pop on in homes & on infrastructure, the sky reeking smokily of nascent autumn
0271
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
lunchtime rain, a ragged thrush shelters under bramble
1283
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
& lateaugust a change in jackdaws' behaviour, suddenly recon closer to winter roost - checking out trees & picking over pasture, testing & assessing under broken rainbow
0225
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
slow, slurred high tide on the Solway; sea aster gone over, horizons of lapwing; military-industrial & littoral arboreal stand; sloes noted for later, the glide of grey heron precise trimming of wings
0294
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
closest blur to real vision barn owl keeping pace rising & falling periphery of headlights
0243
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
against the forecast, august's full moon appears - out of phases of spilled hydrocarbon & tideturning sky
0233
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
& hazy gin sky beechleaves thickening in the lane & haws swelling & colouring a common darter clings then buzzes you & settles again a red admiral with heavy damage twitches faintly on the red earth
0152
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
no walk tonight: out to see Charlie McDowell's adaptation of Tove Jansson's The Summer Book, beautiful cinematography that knows what to do with light. Also a fitting end to summer.
0121
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
housemartinry
0266
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
1st thing, pull up the car in surprise & count 30 lapwing on a silage park
1183
Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
last you suspect you will see of the moon for a while - certainly until after full - as a new front moves in @thehoursgodsends.bsky.social
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Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
& escape at moonrise - dusk a powdery, heavy, blue - headlights on the next hill & turbine blades blunting on humid air, last glow snuffed under weight of sky
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