A short break from summer holidays to speak to the OLLI lifelong learning group at the University of Illinois I wish I could say I was invited on merit. But it was pure nepobaby insider dealing. As my dad is a member, and insisted for a year that they have me give a talk!

In this month’s @sciencefocus.bsky.social Terror birds! Demon ducks! Elephant birds! Colossus penguins! Moas! And more crazy sublime supersized birds that once thrived, but are now gone, known only from fossils. On newsstands now!

Donald Trump's ICE agents arrested and shackled a Catholic nun on her way to church. Happy 250th birthday America. Our Founding Fathers would be proud.

Birthright citizenship for the win.

Happy publication day to Christophe Galfard! This is Life is Big History of the biggest scale, weaving together cosmology, fossils, genetics, and geology to tell the story of why we are here. Reading it feels like you’re having a chat with a friendly scientist over a coffee…

🦖🐦‍⬛My Grandparents Were Dinosaurs is coming to America! @annebrusatte.bsky.social & I are so pleased Sourcebooks is publishing our book stateside, telling the story of how birds evolved from dinosaurs. And Barnes & Noble has a preorder deal on now! 25% off for members. Until June 26!

Charming review of The Story of Birds in the Audubon Magazine @audubon.org It's a golden year (or I should say, Big Year) for books on birds, and it's awesome to be on this list of summer reads alongside many authors I admire!

This is a beautiful new book from Matthew Myerscough. A memoir-travelogue-adventure story that will connect with anyone (like me) who has that strange urge to dig in the ground and crack open rocks in the hope that ancient petrified life might be inside...

🚨If you're in Edinburgh tomorrow, June 23, come along to the beautiful Toppings bookshop as I introduce The Story of Birds to my pals in my adopted hometown! Ticket info👇

Feeling very blessed! It’s Father’s Day and a sunny day in Edinburgh and The Story of Birds is on the Sunday Times bestseller list today! Alongside two fellow @picadorbooks.bsky.social authors & two of my favorite writers Douglas Stuart & Patrick Radden Keefe (fellow Marshall Scholar alum!)

So deeply happy & proud that The Story of Birds has soared onto the Sunday Times bestseller list in the UK during its first week of publication!!! Getting books onto bestseller lists is a total crapshoot. But it's clear to me there are two main reasons why it's happened here:

Loving this new book from @meganjacobspalaeo.bsky.social A beautifully illustrated, engaging, and scholarly guide to the dinosaurs and other fossils of the Isle of Wight. This is the guide I wish I had when I started studying Isle of Wight fossils many years ago as a student!

So check out these books by @neilshubin.bsky.social @peterbrannen.bsky.social @profaliceroberts.bsky.social @stephenmossauthor.bsky.social @endofthepier.bsky.social & many others!

If you like my books (and even if you don't!), check out these books by kind folks who supported The Story of Birds with blurbs. It's a joy to be part of the generous international community of science writers, who care so much about nature, exploration, and discovery! #fossilfriday

Huge thanks to my pals @picadorbooks.bsky.social for making this book happen ! Oh yeah, different cover than the US version but exact same book inside, including the American spellings and phrases I just can’t shake…

The day has finally come: The Story of Birds is out in the UK! 🇬🇧 We launched it last night at the sparkling new @waterstones.bsky.social at Battersea Power Station. Hosted by fellow bird book author @matthewstadlen.bsky.social I hope friends in my adopted home of Britain like this book!

I mean, my God. These could be Nazis on the streets of Berlin in 1938.

Let’s call this what it is. A pogrom in the UK. Masked mobs hunting down foreigners and dark-skinned people, smashing windows, burning houses. An attempt at a British Kristallnacht. Far-right agitators fomenting violence, like Elon Musk FRS, are a disgrace & must be stopped.

June 10: Are you in London TODAY? Are you free THIS EVENING? If so, come along as I launch the UK edition of The Story of Birds! 🦅🐦🦜 Ticket details below...

And we paid Stig Walsh a visit at the @ntlmuseumsscot.bsky.social collections, to see some decidedly more charming fossils.

We even got to do a little fossil hunting, to show the neuro and behavioral scientists what it's like to be a paleontologist. Which on this day, was collecting tons of coprolites (fossil poo...) at Wardie Bay. Maybe not the best advert for our discipline!

Scenes from our Deep Time Cognition meeting in Edinburgh! A great pleasure to welcome our friends from Sweden, Czechia & USA. Our crew combines scientists who study animal behavior, brains & neurons, and fossils. We want to understand how cognition has evolved!

Friends in Canada: The Story of Birds is the Indigo nonfiction Staff Pick of the Month for June! Whoa!! Which means: 20% off online and in-store, all month! Perfect for Father's Day, hint hint... Link to the special offer below👇

Dinosaurs in the @newyorker.com ?! How cool is this, The Story of Birds on the list of best books of 2026 (so far). The other day, an electrician & a soldier got in touch to say they were reading. Today, the gilded New Yorker. I love (trying) to write for everybody!!

Please stop making stuff up. This is all I wrote about Livyatan and Megalodon. Nowhere do I say sharks are dumb or mammals superior. In no world does this passage perpetuate sexism, racism, and colonialism. You are delusional. And this conversation is over. Have a good one.

I had heard a review might be coming, but I didn't expect this! What a kind and charming review from James McConnachie, who I've long admired. Thanks to my pals @picadorbooks.bsky.social for making this all happen.

Absolutely floored to wake up to a text from a friend saying 'congrats on being the Sunday Times @thetimes.com Book of the Week'. Like...what?

Happy publication day to @rowhoop.bsky.social ! Rowan's book Togetherness is a clarion call for cooperation, at a time when competition, chaos & cruelty seem to rule the day. A joyful book, of hope and wonder, which celebrates community as the true key to success in nature. Check it out!

Hey look at that! The Story of Birds is on the list of best books of 2026 (so far that is!! 😉) at Barns and Noble. What a joy to sit next to so many awesome books published over the past few months!

Super Natural by Alex Riley will be published in paperback in just a few days! Check it out! A celebration of the most extreme, extraordinary and eccentric things life is capable of. Alex writes with joy and passion, and each page brings a new revelation about the resiliency of life!