iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Geoffrey Haigh

Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Two images taken 85 years apart on different continents, but the similarities are unmistakable. BTW: The murderer in the picture on the right was eventually identified in 2025. Let's hope it does not take 84 years to identify the fascist on the left.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Thank you Susan. I meditate too, which gives me a new outlook. One without hate, which holds and embraces the old and the new, the good and the bad, the stranger and friend. With mindful awareness, with smiles and a welcome, with hearing and listening, with love and with hope.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Measured but firm, the way it should be. Hear hear to the people of Greenland.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Who knows? But this just seems to ring true, and certainly makes sense.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

A difficult read, heart-breaking, so frustrating. And #Israel is perhaps the only country in the world where such violence continues with impunity. Come on, US, UK, EU. Where will you be when the history of the #Palestine #Genocide is finally told in full? There's no doubt where public opinion is.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

The #Palestine #Genocide has been going on for a very long time.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

A chance to find your way around the amazing world of lichens

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

Are we already living in a time of societal #collapse? Rachel Donald of the #PlanetCritical website reflects on how her own life's experiences have come into better focus when viewed from that possibility. #GoliathsCurse www.planetcritical.com/p/between-tw...

planetcritical.com

Between Two Worlds

Preparing for the worst while hoping for the best

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

For sheer joy, this is so well worth playing. And #joy can do us so much good. No wonder people at the airport applauded.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

#Gaza #famine #Israel "Last week, I saw aid dropping from the sky near my home in az-Zawayda. Neither I nor any of my neighbours had the courage to chase after it because we knew the moment it hit the ground, a battle would erupt..." Read on here: www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

aljazeera.com

The airdrops on Gaza are a PR stunt, not a humanitarian operation

The meagre amount of food dropped from the sky does not reach the hungry, but it does cover up global complicity.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Old evils come back with new faces and in new places. #Gaza #Israel #genocide #USA The problem is not with people, it's with those who pursue or cling to power. See "Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse" See also substack.com/@suevpate/no...

substack.com

Sue Pate (@suevpate)

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

#life, six miles down, an #ecosystem in an #ocean-trench, #nature we are only just discovering. Please don't trash this amazing #planet.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

#Gaza #Palestine #Peace #Israel 67 year old retired teacher arrested at a silent demonstration in Leeds for holding up a graphic reproduced from Private Eye magazine, making a joke around the banning of a non-violent organisation under #anti-terrorism laws. See www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Sign held up by elderly man at peaceful, silent protest, for which he was arrested by West Yorkshire Police. For those who cannot see the image, the sign, reads "'Palestine Action' explained. [cross] Unacceptable Palestine Action Spraying military planes with paint. [tick] Acceptable Palestine Action Shooting Palestinians queueing for food © Private Eye no 1653" Originally published in the satirical magazine Private Eye.

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Reposted by Geoffrey Haigh

Scottish Beach Project @scottishbeach.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Scottish beach advice for the Summer. Arrive early to grab a spot 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Exploring #lichens on the #Isle-of-Rona, #Hebrides, #Scotland No further posts until next week. I'm going into hospital tomorrow for two or three days. Hope to keep posting lichen images after that Tap/click the captions to expand. #lichenGBI #FungiFriends #nature

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Exploring #lichens on #Isle-of-Rona, #Hebrides, #Scotland I said once I had found 2 of the 4 former Lobaria species on Rona. Well, here’s no 3, Lobarina scrobiculata. I found this photo yesterday, I must have overlooked it before! Tap/click the captions to expand. #lichenGBI #FungiFriends #nature

A foliose lichen growing on a tree trunk. The upper sides of the lobes is a yellowish green, the undersides are very pale with a tinge of brown.

This lichen was growing at a point I could barely see or reach on a mature birch tree, obscured from view by a big branch, and if I moved round the tree the ground fell away. I suspected it was Lobarina scrobiculata but wasn't sure. It was at the highest point I could touch, and pushed my camera up to it. Here's the photo.

This species can be a blue-grey colour when it's hydrated, but in the hot dry weather while I was on Rona it had dried out to this pale green. These lobes are quite young – a good sign because it means it is growing – because there is no soredia on them. It usually produces grey soredia on the margins and the ridges.

The upper surface is described as "scrobiculate" which means it has shallow depression separated by shallow, rounded ridges, and hence the name.

The underside is pale with a pale brown tomentum. This brown tomentum on the lower surface is a key distinguishing feature from other Lobaria species. If you enlarge the upper left corner of the image, you can just see it.

This means I've now found three of the four former Lobaria species that were recorded on Rona in 1990.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Exploring #lichens on the #Isle-of-Rona, #Hebrides, #Scotland Walking east past the old houses I came to a small rocky summit, on the island’s N–S ridge (at 48 m). Here were saxicolous lichens we’ve met before. Do you remember them? Tap/click the captions to expand #lichenGBI #FungiFriends #nature

A dark brown foliose lichen with white pseudo-cyphellae on the lobes (remember yesterday's cyphellae?), with a number of apothecia down the left edge of the photo.

Apothecia are the structures which produce the fungal spores by which this lichen reproduces. There is one small apothecium, closed up around the disc, and three much older, fully open discs, red-brown in colour.

We saw this on rocks up near the summit of Meall Acairseid. On that occasion I did a K-test to check it was not another species I keep looking for. I did the same here. Having scraped away some of the upper cortex from one of the lobes I put a drop of KOH (potassium hydroxide) onto the white medulla of the lichen. It immediately turned yellow, then after a short time it turned red.

If you're still scratching your head trying to remember this one, here is one clue. Foliose lichens with white pseudocyphellae along the margins and on the upper surface, many of them linear, usually belong to the genus Parmelia.

This glossy dark brown species is Parmelia omphalodes. In NW Scotland it frequently covers the top of large boulders or rock outcrops.

A pale brown fruticose lichen with some thick main stems and lots of much thinner side branches.

This is a Sphaerophorus, but there are no fruiting bodies on this one (there often aren't) which give it both the name of the genus (Sphaer - ophorus = bearing spheres) and the name of this species (globosus).

S. globosus is the one which has branches of varying thickness; S. fragilis has branches which all tend to be similar in thickness.

I'm not sure we've met this one before on Rona.

Here is a foliose lichen with quite narrow lobes, closely attached to the rock. Near the edge, at the bottom of the photo, are the younger lobes, the very youngest of which are a plain, pale yellow-green colour. There are no pseudo-cyphellae, but it is a similar and related genus to Parmelia. This is a Xanthoparmelia. The first part of that name comes from the Greek word xanthos, meaning "yellow". It is a very distinctive colour, which helps you start to identify it at first sight.

Slightly older lobes, just away from the edge, have lots of dark dots on them. These are very small, thin, isidia. You need a 10x lens to see them properly. The oldest lobes, in the centre of the thallus (higher up in the photo) are simply crowded with isidia, so the surfaces of these lobes can no longer be seen.

Scattered over these older lobes there are a lot of apothecia. The discs are again a red-brown colour, and are surrounded by a pale margin. Isidia are starting to grow from some of the margins of older apothecia, and some of the very oldest apothecia are being taken over by more isidia, where the disc once was.

This is Xanthoparmelia conspersa. Conspersus is a Latin word meaning "sprinkled" – sprinkled with isidia. This lichen is common on well-lit siliceous rocks, both on the coast and inland.

A number of Cladonias were growing on among moss on the edge of the rock. Cladonias with red apothecia always catch the eye, and often make for a striking photo.

There are other Cladonias here. The narrow brown pointed spikes are one species, but I'm going to focus on that red-topped one. The stalks which bear the fruiting bodies (podetia) of some Cladonias end in a cup, but neither of these species do. The brown one ends in points, and the pale yellow-green one ends bluntly, with the red apothecia growing straight on the end.

I think one short stalk branches into two just before the top, and each of those two branches has a red apothecium on top of it. The apothecia, remember, are where the lichen produces the fungal spores that are released into the atmosphere.

There are four Cladonias in Britain that grow in the form of sticks and have red apothecia. To distinguish them from each other it is helpful to look at what the surface of the 'stick' (the podetium) is covered with.

Two of the four have fine soredia on the podetia, so we can rule those out here. On the ground here there are a lot of small irregular bits of lichen. These are squamules, and it is from such squamules that the podetia have grown. To the right of the photo is another podetium, but with no red top. You can see how that one is attached to a number of squamules.

You can also see much smaller squamules on the surface of the podetia. You might have to enlarge the photo to see them clearly. Apart from those little squamules, nothing else seems to be present on the surface of the podetia.

Of the other two red-topped stick-like Cladonias, one (Cladonia bellidiflora) often has only dense squamules, the other (Cladonia floerkeana) can have quite a mixture of surface types, but it often has coarse granules. While it can sometimes be a bit tricky to tell the two apart, this all makes me fairly happy that this is Cladonia bellidiflora.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

#Lichens on the #Isle-of-Rona, #Hebrides, #Scotland “Primrose Alley” led to the ruins of an abandoned township. The houses were becoming covered with mosses and lichens. Today we focus on one special lichen, Sticta Sylvatica. Tap/click the captions to expand. #lichenGBI #FungiFriends #nature

The Sticta genus (or family of lichens) is related to the Peltigera genus. We looked at two Peltigeras over the last two days. I was excited to find several places where Sticta sylvatica was growing quite profusely, on rocks at the top of "Primrose Alley" and on the stones in the walls of the ruined blackhouses in the township.

Sticta lichens are rather special because they are usually associated with old woodlands. They are members of the Lobarion community of lichens, which includes the four former Lobaria species, and other unusual lichens associated with ancient woodland.

Like Peltigera species, Stictas have large foliose lobes. The upper surface is usually dark brown, from the cyanobacteria which is its photobiont. On the underside you can see a pale brown tomentum here.

The really distinctive feature of Stictas is the presence of scattered cyphellae on the underside. Cyphellae are breaks in the lower cortex of a lichen thallus, forming a small round hole about 1 mm wide, through to the medulla. These breaks enable air and water vapour to enter the medulla.

The small white shapes you can see here are these cyphellae. You may have heard of pseudo-cyphellae in Parmelia species. These are similar opening to the medulla, but they are called pseudo- ("false") because they occur in the upper cortex, not the lower cortex as here.

This photo shows the upper surfaces of a few lobes of Sticta sylvatica. This is a multi-lobed Sticta; some species have only a single lobe per thallus. These lobes are a grey-brown colour. They become a darker brown when wet. These structures are about 5 cm long and up to 1 cm wide.

On some of these lobes there is a faint network of ridges, made more obvious by the lines of isidia growing on them. Isidia are a darker brown and form on the margins and ridges of the lobes. This is its only method of reproduction since apothecia and pycnidia are never produced.

Some species, including this one, Sticta sylvatica, have been called "stinky Sticta". One of the chemicals that the lichen produces is trimethylamine, which has a strong smell of fish. Some people can smell a Stictus as they walk up the the tree it's on. I can't, but if I handle a lobe when it's wet, my fingers then smell of fish.

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Geoffrey Haigh @geoffrey311.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

#Isle-of-Rona, #Hebrides, #Scotland The trees in “Primrose Alley” also had plenty of interesting #lichens on them. Some we’ve seen before, but new people “like” these posts each day. Welcome! Come and enjoy the little things in #nature. Tap/click the captions to expand. #lichenGBI #FungiFriends

Growing on a horizontal branch of a tree was this distinctive lichen. It's quite abundant in some parts of Britain, but is also quite beautiful. This is Parmotrema perlatum.

If you enlarge the image you'll see what's distinctive about it, in case you find it in the woods on a broad-leaved tree.

It's a foliose or leaf-like lichen which may be pale grey to pale green, depending on how hydrated it is. The underside of the lobes is dark, brown near the margins and black in the centre. The lobes are attached to the bark by rhizines in their centres.

See how the margins of some lobes are covered with a thick pale substance. This causes them to fold into short, tight bends. The substance is fine soredia. It's composed of very small clusters of both the fungal cells and the algal cells of the lichen. When they become detached, if any of these clusters ends up in the right sort of place, they can grow into a new lichen.

Yesterday we met one of the "dog-lichens", Peltigera membranacea. Here it is again, with another Peltigera. This new one is quite common on soil, moss, rocks and tree stumps.

The P. membranacea is just right of centre. Like yesterday's example, these lobes are completely covered with a white tomentum. You can see too that the surface of the lobes is uneven, with some raised areas. And see how the margins turn downwards at the very edge.

Then there are some lobes of Peltigera hymeninum. They are a bit old and somewhat broken, but you can still see their main features. These are the brown lobes. They have no tomentum, nor do they have the distinctive raised areas of the P. membranacea (better seen in yesterday's example)

These lobes are much thinner than the P. membranacea, which may be why these ones have become rather broken. Notice too that the very edge of the lobes curls upwards rather than bends downwards – that is, where the lobes still have their original margin left.

When looking at a Peltigera, you always need to look at the underside to pick up more characteristics that help identify it. These lobes are showing their undersides very clearly. They may look rather bland and nondescript, but there are some important features here.

They have veins as all Peltigeras do. These ones are rather indistinct. They are shallow and broad, and their colour is pale and subtle. But they are not white like the very distinct veins of P. membranacea. They form a network, and in the gaps between them you can see the undersurface of the lobes is distinctly white.

A few rhizines can be seen in the lower part of two of the lobes. They come from the veins, they're pale, thin and occasionally splitting. Their job is simply to anchor the lobe to the moss it's growing over.

And finally for today, if you missed this lichen before, here is some Lobaria pulmonaria growing exuberantly over the low branches of an old willow tree. The weather was dry; when it's wet these lobes are a much brighter green.

Lobaria grows in damp, humid woodlands, but it doesn't cope with atmospheric pollution. These conditions are just what we find on the west coast of Scotland, where it grows very happily. These lobes are big. Some may be 12 inches or even more long, and several inches wide.

Some of these lobes are turning their undersides towards us. There are some very big lobes in the upper part of the picture, left of centre. There is another one hanging off that branch at the bottom of the picture. These lobes are only attached to the tree at one end, the rest is free.

See how the undersides have some white islands within a pale orange-brown network. Those islands are raised, and they correspond to depressions on the upper side of the lobes. The pale brown parts are covered with a brown tomentum.

Looking at the green or brown upper sides you can see the depressions, outlined by raised ridges. In some cases the ridges stand out because they are picked out in white. This species produces isidia along the ridges and margins of the lobes – though occasionally a few specimens produce soredia in place of isidia. When the isidia break off they leave white scars behind.

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