Robbie Rowe

@privateshufti

Healthcare scientist, naturalist, spotterish Omnivorous reader and book collector (modern firsts, nature writing, climate fiction) He / Him Fediverse presence: @privateshufti@mastodon.social No DMs

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Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· 17d

Amazingly productive moth trapping session overnight in East Devon. Highlight was this striped hawkmoth (life ✅), but also 2 small elephant hawkmoths, oak eggars, black arches, canary-shouldered thorn #TeamMoth #Lepidoptera

A large olive and pink striped moth at rest

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· 18d

Actually ripe figs in the UK, at my sister's house in Devon 😋

Four figs in a white bowl, on a varnished wooden table

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· 22d

Seeing clouded yellows this year in places I've never seen them before. This was on Beaulieu Heath in the New Forest on Saturday, also seen 2 in Hollybrook Cemetery in Southampton last week and today #UKButterflies

A yellow butterfly with dark forewing tips perched on parched ground

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· 26d

Bros chillin

Just 4 herring gulls relaxing in the park

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jul 13

Visited Strawberry Hill house on Saturday, the home of Horace Walpole and #Gothic revival masterpiece #Romanticism

Gothic staircase with a stained glass lampshade hanging from a cupola with 4 quatrefoil windows

Gothic mantelpiece in the Great Refectory at Strawberry Hill

The rather understated gallery at Strawberry Hill

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jul 11

In hawthorn-time the heart grows light The world is sweet in sound and sight Glad thoughts and birds take flower and flight The heather kindles toward the light The whin is frankincense and flame Swinburne, The Tale of Balen #BookWormSat

Close-up of hawthorn flowers, also known as Mayflower

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jul 5

A great wheeling flock of gulls enjoying a bonanza from #FlyingAntDay in Southampton #UKbirds

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jun 26

Batesian mimicry: the hornet hoverfly, an annual garden visitor that still fools me into thinking it's a hornet when in flight #Diptera #Insects

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jun 23

And so the Great Broiling begins... #Heatwave no. 2 of 2026

Screenshot of weather forecast showing predicted heat of 31 C today, rising to 35 C tomorrow

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jun 21

Had my Dad round for a geeky Father's day eating Greek food & watching the film Nocturnes, about studying moths in the eastern Himalayas #TeamMoth

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jun 21

Happy Midsommar Solstice everyone #SummerSolstice

Still from the film Midsommar, with the new queen Florence Pugh garlanded in flowers

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jun 18

Essex skipper I believe? Lots on the wing locally, with meadow browns & marbled whites #UKbutterflies #Insects #30DaysWild

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jun 13

Heard this female stag beetle crash into the shed, now relocated to the wood pile #Insects #Coleoptera

A large black and dark chestnut beetle resting on a birch log, framed by leaves

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Jun 2

The Maypole (Maibaum) at Schönbrun, Vienna #Folklore #Spring

A spruce pine that has been stripped of bark and foliage except for the top branches, with a ring of greenery decorated with colourful ribbons near the top

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 31

I think this is a lesser purple emperor, perched on my hand in the Donau Auen national park in Vienna this morning. Amazing floodplain woodland, rich in birds, insects, plants etc. You can cycle out to it along the river #butterfly #Vienna #Wien #DonauAuen #Lobau

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 31

The Donaufeld cornfields just before a brief shower yesterday, love coming here in the early summer when the cornflowers and poppies adorn the corn #Wien #Vienna

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 30

Terrible photo of a purple emperor that briefly alighted on a path next to the Danube in Vienna this morning #Wien #Schmetterling #Butterfly #Vienna

A large butterfly on the ground with wings folded. The underwings are patterned with brown and white markings. The iridescent purple in the upper forewings is sadly completely hidden

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 21

My first painted lady of the year today, nectaring on ox-eye daisies #ukbutterflies #insects

A large orange, black and white butterfly with wings spread, perched on a flower

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 20

Red-tailed bumblebee on lonicera for #WorldBeeDay

A dark bumblebee with a red tip to the abdomen, hanging beneath a white flower

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 8

Hey UK people: ignore the shitshow, get outside & enjoy the glory of springtime. Here is Colmer's Hill near Bridport from last weekend, mantled in bluebells #Spring #Nature #Landscape

A clump of pines upon a hill, it's flanks garbed in bluebells, viewed over a canopy of woodland in spring foliage

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 6

Found this sabre wasp, the largest ichneumon in the UK, as she searched for prey buried deep inside a log in Ampfield Woods, Hampshire yesterday. So big I thought it was a damselfly initially Check out this record of Rhyssa persuasoria irecord.org.uk/record-detai... #Insects #Hymenoptera

Large ichneumon wasp with a very long ovipositor, a black body with white markings, and red legs. The insect is perched on a log, tapping it with its antennae to locate prey (likely larvae of beetles or wood wasps)

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 4

Hart's tongue ferns unscrolling in Hell Lane holloway #ferns #holloway #Spring #Nature

Intense green blades of ferns unfurl, spotlit by a shaft of sunlight penetrating the shade of a sunken track in early May

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· May 3

The English countryside at its most sublime: #Spring #Dorset

Bluebells on the flanks of Colmer's Hill

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Apr 18

"The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end" "It does not matter that you do not understand the reason. You are the Beloved Child of the House. Be comforted" From the masterpiece that is Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke #BookWormSat

The Gothic Arch, early 1770s
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778)
Royal Academy of Arts

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Apr 7

Palm with epiphytes, Drake Bay, Costa Rica

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Apr 4

"Meteorologically, Hell didn’t seem much worse than an English spring" R.F. Kuang, Katabasis #BookWormSat #Hell 💙📚

Front cover of UK hardback copy of Katabasis, featuring an Escher-like staircase, King's College Chapel, and Archimedes the katabatic cat

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Mar 31

Mandarin drake, majestic and heraldic on Regent's Canal near London zoo yesterday #Birds 🪶

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Mar 28

Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial Mark Anthony in Act 3, Scene 1 of Julius Caesar #BookWormSat #Shakespeare 💙📚

Tehran burning
Source: Why Smoke From Iran’s Burning Refineries Is More Dangerous Than Urban Smog | WIRED Middle East https://share.google/SW0FSGCJsy3BKJMZi
Getty Images

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Mar 21

"Here grew hugeous trees of a size not seen in the old country for hundreds of years, evergreens taller than cathedrals, cloud-piercing spruce and hemlock... overhead their leaf-choked branches merged into a false sky, dark and savage" #BookWormSat #forests 📚 1/2

Front cover of UK paperback of Barkskins by Annie Proulx. The top of a very tall pine has been cut and is starting to fall

Robbie Rowe@privateshufti· Mar 20

Osmia cornuta (European orchard bees) kicking off the next generation 🤞 #bees #pollinators #spring