#rootling creature

[bellablackhart]

Some rootlings and some mushling concept art ♡

[weebird20art]

I turned a cute cottage photo into a inked wimmelbild style Rootle Homestead. It's available as a print and other things on my Redbubble 😁

[blacktowbarony]

d100 Spells, Part 9 - Witchcraft

Obscure but practical magic. Known to witches, druids, and shamans.

Miniaturize - L targets are reduced to the size of a mouse for 1 hour.

Flying Broom - Enchant a broom to fly at your command. It can carry one person at a time.

Familiar - Targets a creature no bigger than a cat. For the duration, you can sense what it senses and give it telepathic commands. If it is killed during the spell, it instead teleports to your side and the spell ends.

Beast Face - Turn your head into that of another animal. This gives you the ability to converse with animals of the same type.

Voodoo - You need an effigy of the target with some personal item attached - a lock of hair, scrap of clothing, small trinket, or similar. You can manipulate or damage the target using the doll for the spell’s duration whilst within 150 ft. To determine the exact effects, imagine there was a giant with your Intelligence modifier as their attack bonus manipulating the target. If Voodoo damage reduces the target to 0 health, instead of dying they fall unconscious.

Purify Food & Water - L meals worth of food and water can be made safe for consumption.

Scry - You see through the eyes of another for L minutes. The WIS Test to overcome the target’s resist has +1 if you have seen them, +1 if you have touched them, and +1 if you have a personal item. The target is unaware of the attempt, and if they resist they are shielded for 24 hours.

Swarm - You become a swarm of butterflies, crows, rats, piranhas, or other small creatures. You only take damage from area effects.

Manse - A sturdy, furnished cottage appears for L × 6 hours. You can permit and forbid entry to it at will. When the spell ends, everything not created by the spell is left behind.

Pig Slave - Summon an intelligent pig that will perform menial tasks or criticise your plans. After L hours (or if it dies) the pig vanishes back to its home. Whenever you cast this spell it always summons the same pig, so you can give it homework to do between castings. The pig’s home is in the branches of Yggdrasil, the interdimensional world tree, where it lives in a pigsty with other pigs and rootles for brain-enhancing truffles. Grabbing the pig when it returns home will take up to L people there.

[talking-about-bug-snacks]

WHITE ROOTLE

You have probably heard that “everyone’s talkin’ ‘bout Bugsnax!” And it is so true! Even some quite well-known people are! In fact, we have a question from a celebrity guest right now regarding today’s subject! Take it away, Melman the Giraffe!

Excellent question! White Rootle is white because it is a parsnip! It is the same size and shape as Rootle with the same behavior and voice, but it is white instead of orange, appears during the day instead of at night, and is much more calorie-dense! I don’t often think much about parsnips. I mostly know there is parsnip pie, which sounds weird at first, but carrot cake and sweet potato pie are wonderful so it is probably good too!

So yes, White Rootle is the first example of a recolored variant we are going over here! Recolors/reskin can be controversial but I think at least here, they are fine, and in fact, good! That’s more Bugsnax than there would be otherwise, and they’re all of course based on real foods, so they’re a good way for more representation, too! If it wasn’t for recolors, do you really think they would have included a parsnip creature? Probably not! And it’s also fun to think of your own variants based on foods that may not be present!

Do you know of any parsnip-based creatures in media that are NOT counterparts to carrot-based ones? I don’t! I would like to know, if you do!

[weirdmarioenemies]

TALKIN’ BOUT MORE BUGSNAX

It’s true! I kept my promise this time, and it is time for the sequel to our Bugsnax post on this Flavor Friday! I got all the background information and gushing out of the way in that post, so I’ll have lots of room here to talk about even MORE than last time!

RAZZBY

You may think this is starting too familiarly... but this is not Strabby! Razzby is a raspberry, of course! Which, if you ask me, are better than strawberries. It may behave just like Strabby, but it is its own distinct creature that even has its own voice. And even though it is so similar, is that a bad thing? I don’t think so! If “recolor” creatures were left out, that would just mean fewer creatures, and more creatures means more fun! Unless it’s like, something like Yo-Kai Watch with recolors that only exist to be rewards from horrendous RNG, but that is not the case here!

Like Strabby, Razzby is said to be based on a ladybug, but the raspberry style brings even more to mind! For example, the cochineal (photo here!), a scale insect that parasitizes cactuses. The wingless females are red and lumpy enough to quite resemble a raspberry! There is also the springtail Rambutanura hunanensis (photo here!) which really looks just like a raspberry with legs and antennae. This species was discovered in 2018... after Bugsnax was well into its development! Hmmmmm! 

Finally, I would like to add one more tidbit: it has recently been revealed that Strabby (and by extension, presumably Razzby) is also based on aphids! Isn’t it beautiful? Ladybugs and aphids putting aside their conflict for a greater good (a funny walking strawberry).

ROOTLE

After writing a surprisingly massive amount about Razzby, it is time to get back to my favorites! LOOK at Rootle! I was going to say “don’t you just love Rootle?” but I don’t need to. You just love Rootle! A carrot earthworm is simply splendid, especially when you actually see it moving. It stretches and contracts just like a worm! This carrot is soft, and I think it is great how strange that is. Also, Rootle is shy! If you get too close, it will burrow into the ground, with just its little rear sticking out! Please be nice around it.

SHISHKABUG

oh MAN! Shishkabug is so perfect! Cinnasnail and Rootle are perfect, but their “bug” bases are ultimately rather simple shapes. Shishkabug, however, uses only existing properties of its snak to create the comparatively complex shape of an ant! And as if that wasn’t enough? Its tomato leaves give it a polite little hairdo. And if THAT wasn’t enough either? It has perhaps the best name in the game. WOW! Shishkabug is so wonderful. 

PINKLE

Pinkle has some incredibly fascinating anatomy in a way you would perhaps not expect! Normally, the pickle jar serves as its main body, and is where the eyes are attached, as four floaty pickles serve as legs. However! In order to catch it, its shell must be removed...

...and Pinkle’s anatomy changes accordingly! One pickle now becomes the main body while the other three remain as legs, now positioned differently, and the eyes move to the main pickle body. That’s so neat! I love Pinkle! At first I was unsure how to feel because it doesn’t initially resemble its hermit crab basis, but seeing its behavior and hearing its voice makes me love it a lot.

Pinkle is also used by Filbo to make Snakwater. Would you try it? It’s bug-infused!

PEELBUG

All I’m doing in this post is saying how perfect these Bugsnax are and I’m not stopping now! Peelbugs are a group of citrus fruits that behave like pillbugs! Another Snak that is perfect not only in name, but in function! Oranges are already weirdly “pre-sliced”, and Peelbugs can crawl around in this form, but they prefer to roll up into a full fruit and hide in tunnels!

FLUTTERJAM

This will be the last Bugsnak for today’s post, but I wanted to end with a REALLY wacky one! Flutterjam is one of the relatively few fully unique Bugsnax not revealed before release, and WOW! I was really amazed when I saw it. I thought I had seen it all, and then I see THIS! Not in game, mind you. I couldn’t resist. I just had to look through the iMessage sticker pack to see them all early.

Flutterjam is butterfly-based, but in a weird, uncommon way, as you can see! This sliced slice of bread is really nothing but a pair of wings, with its eyes positioned pretty far apart on those wings, not making any effort to imply a “main body!” Perhaps they even represent fake eyespots as well! 

Flutterjam’s method of capture is as wacky as it deserves! You may be thinking a piece of bread with nothing but jelly on it is a strange Bugsnak basis, but the truth is, Flutterjam longs for peanut butter! It flies high above, but if you sling peanut butter at it, it will close right up and fall, happy to have realized its destiny.

That is all for now! Join us next time for even MORE!

[sardinesandhumbugs]

30 "when you smile, you knock me out, I fall apart" with Ratty and Mole?

(Also, I haven't actually watched any starkid musicals those were suggested by @residentofskinnymandria but I will be looking into them this weekend :D)

A/N: Thank you for the prompt and for your patience! I procrastinated somewhat on this because for my other OTPs, I would usually go straight for the romance with a starter like this, but by now y'all know that when it comes to Ratty & Mole, the line between romantic and platonic tends to be up to reader interpretation :)

Also a shout-out to @wolfiethewriter for unwittingly providing inspiration for this ficlet, by getting hilariously drunk a few nights back during our Midnight Sun readthrough. I only hope you fared better the next morning than Rat :D

x

Categorically, Rat knew there were worse ways to wake.

But, as Toad started on his fifth verse of 'What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?' Rat found he could think of no such examples.

He muttered something unsavoury and buried himself deeper into the recesses of the caravan, far from the prying, headache-inducing light of day, and far, far away from Toad's over-exuberant singing – for what little good it would do him. For Toad had inherited his mother's operatic lungs, if quantifiably not her pitch-perfect tone, and both were on full display that morning.

(It could not be said that Toad was a bad singer. It was simply the case that enthusiasm preceded vocal form, and he cared little for meddling things such as keys or sharps and flats when the mood took him. Regardless, even if Toad's voice had been flawless, Rat wouldn't have had the patience for it. Not today. The careening key changes were just the icing on the cake.)

The song briefly rose as the caravan door opened, and Rat recoiled as much from the intrusion of light as he did from Toad's blasted singing. Then the aroma of eggs and bacon hit him, and he begrudgingly shuffled his snout out of the cool, dark safety of the bedcovers.

Mole stood before him, fried offering in paw, and looking significantly less the worse for wear after their previous night's inebriations than Rat. He grinned, and set the breakfast down on the table beside the bed. "Well," he said, "I've never seen you sleep in this late."

"This isn't sleeping in," Rat muttered. "It's suffering."

"Maybe you should have thought about that before drinking so much yesterday," Mole said, the faint admonishment in his tone outweighed by the amusement.

"I'm not a lightweight," Rat grumbled. "It's just whatever Toad puts in his damn drinks to make them green always knocks me out."

"And makes you very drunk, apparently."

Rat hesitated, unsure whether he wanted to know the answer to his next question. "How drunk?"

Mole grinned again. "Nothing too embarrassing. You mostly just gabbled and then got distressed when you couldn't pronounce a word properly."

"What word?"

"I believe it was library."

"...Library?" Rat echoed. "How–"

"You kept saying 'liblary' instead."

"Libla...?"

"Liblary, hm-mm. The second 'l' kept creeping in, however hard you tried otherwise." The humour in Mole's voice betrayed that Rat's efforts, while in vain, had been quite the show.

Rat considered this as best he could while the sensation of galloping horses gallivanted between his ears. Eventually he located what he hoped would be a safe question. "Why were we talking about libraries?"

"Oh, we weren't – just you. Goodness knows why, and we thought it best not to ask."

"DON'T LET HIM STEER THAT CARGO FREIGHTER, DON'T LET HIM STEER THAT CARGO FREIGHTER, DON'T LET HIM STEER THAT CARGO FREIGHTER, URL-EYE IN THE MORNING!"

With a wince, Rat turned a reluctant ear to Toad's questionable shanty rendition, trying to figure out if the words were indeed what he was hearing, or whether it was simply the effects of the hangover. "What verse is Toad on now?"

Mole chuckled. "Ones of his own creation. I think he ran out of official verses he could recall a while back."

As if to compound that fact, Toad skipped the refrain entirely and overshot to the next verse, of which the origin was undoubtedly a Toad Special.

"PUT HIM IN THE LIBLARY 'TIL HE'S SOBER, PUT HIM IN THE LIBLARY 'TIL HE'S SOBER, PUT HIM IN THE LIBLARY 'TIL HE'S SOBER, URL-EYE IN THE MORNING!"

Rat winced again. "I'm not living this one down, am I?"

"Oh, Toad will forget in time," Mole said, with surprisingly surety for someone who had spent only a day and a half in Toad's presence. But, then again, Toad was not the most complicated of creatures. However, Rat noted that Mole didn't make any mention of himself forgetting any time soon.

Mole nudged the plate closer to Rat. "Eat up. You'll feel better for it."

Rat had half a mind to make a comment about food being Mole's solution to everything, but then he caught another whiff of breakfast and his stomach gave an audible rumble. He pushed himself up and made a start on the meal.

"Just out of curiosity," Mole said, "why did you drink so much of Toad's cocktails if you know you always suffer the next day?"

"Honest answer?" Rat asked. "I forgot."

"You... forgot?"

"I had..." and Rat paused as Toad butchered another verse, "more pressing issues on my mind."

Both animals waited out Toad's latest crescendo, enduring the new volumes before he petered out to more acceptable levels.

"Would those issues be green and singing?" Mole asked.

"Usually."

Rat had worked his way through a rash and a half of bacon before Mole spoke again, and the distance between the words belayed an uneasy deliberation. "You didn't have to come along," Mole said. He sat on the bench that ran along the inner of the caravan, which served as table space and seating as the need arose, and the ledge was set just a smidgen too high so that his paws only brushed the floor. "You know, out on the open road. Not if you didn't want to."

"Ah, well," Rat said, "then who would keep you and Toad out of trouble?"

"I think we would have managed."

Rat squinted. "No offence, Moley, but I know you, and I know Toad–" he gestured to the window from which Toad's performance was still going strong, and then immediately regretted it as the alcohol residing in his system sent his head spinning "–and you are both many things, but 'out of trouble' is not one of them."

"We survived this morning without mishap."

There was a crash from outside, followed by a cry of, "It's alright! Everything's good! No need to check!" from Toad.

"Mostly," Mole amended.

"Definitely sounds like you have everything under control here," Rat deadpanned.

"I'm sure everything's fine."

There was another thump, this time accompanied by the unimpressed whinny of the horse.

Mole and Rat exchanged glances.

Mole closed the window. "Look, Ratty, all I'm saying is that you needn't have felt obliged to come along if you'd rather have stayed on your river." He glanced to the wicker luncheon basket that was still half-full from yesterday, and which had seemingly swayed Rat in his decision to accompany the caravan. "We could have had our picnics on the riverbank instead."

"We?" Rat echoed.

"Well, of course. Do you really think I would have gone off on the Life Adventurous without you?"

Rat didn't immediately respond. The horses in his head had calmed, but the outcome was simply that he had more space to think properly through the last couple of days. Truth be told, he hadn't quite been sure which Mole would have chosen – him or the open road – and he hadn't been interested in putting it to the test. His mind played back the eagerness with which Mole had rootled through the caravan, exploring the compact living wagon and settling in with an ease that made Rat wonder whether the caravan's claustrophobic space reminded Mole of his own beneath-ground home. It certainly was a far cry from Rat's riverbank abode, where the house had the space to sprawl along the shoreline and the freshwater breeze meant the air was never still. Not like being underground, he was sure.

"Ratty?"

He had been lost in his thoughts for too long, and now Mole leant into his line of vision. Rat had to think quickly to recall what exactly Mole had asked.

"No, of course not," he said. "Only – well, I would have hated for you to have stayed on the riverbank only on my behalf."

"Like you came along here on mine?"

“And for the picnics,” Rat added. “Don’t forget the picnics.”

“Right,” Mole said with a laugh that said he wasn’t buying Rat’s offhanded dismissal any more than Rat believed it. “How could I forget the picnics?” He patted Rat’s paw and swung off the seat. “Well, you can put all thoughts of picnics from your mind until you’ve recovered — and maybe in future we stick to drinks we’re familiar with, hm?”

“Maybe,” Rat conceded.

It was as Mole threw him one last grin and disappeared out of the caravan that Rat came to the reluctant conclusion that, whether or not his housemate was aware of it, Mole had him wrapped around his little claw. He set the emptied plate to one side and collapsed back into the bunk, thankful for the small mercy that at least Toad had stopped singing—

“Feeling better finally?”

Rat jolted back up, and had to steady himself against the table as his head swam. He located Toad at the window. “Toad! How long have you been there?”

“I don’t know; I wasn’t keeping track.” Toad leant in against the windowsill conspiringly. “If I had known all it’d take for you to join me would be the smile off an undergrounder, I’d have dug him out ages ago.”

Rat grumbled but decided he was still too hungover to bicker over it.

Besides, it was somewhat difficult to argue with when it was true.

[bibliocratic]

Aspec Martin Week – Day 4 

Martin's first Pride ft. OG Archive Crew. Set sometime during S1. 

Martin hangs close to Sasha near a stand selling gaudy accessories and spinning fans while Tim bounds off, shoving cheerfully through the mass of people, promising to search out somewhere that might have something approaching alcohol.

He's been gone a while now, and Martin's been anxiously adjusting his scratchy, over-loose bow-tie to try and distract himself, feeling sweaty and visible and uncomfortable. Sasha and Tim, in their early morning marshalling of their small group, had convinced him to paint his nails in some gauche glittery material that ripples rainbow when the light strikes it. He doesn't like the colour, and he's half ruined it anyway with his picking and fussing. Someone hasn't adjusted the volume controls on whatever system they've set up, and the next song blares out screaming-loud before someone lowers it, and Martin winces at how much it all it, every time someone gets hold of a garbling microphone and hollers something in the distance that gets muffled by a feedback whine.

He keeps checking his phone to make sure his mum hasn't called. He still isn't sure what excuse he'd try.

“What do you think?” Sasha angles her neck up to half-shout in Martin's ear. “For your first one?”

She's better dressed for the day, that's for sure, a flowing cotton summer dress  with sewn-on streamers like some particularly striking maypole. She has a fake flower crown and it makes her look like a wispy fae creature. Her earrings dangle and chime, and Martin's glad he's not here on his own.

“Loud,” Martin complains back, and he thinks she laughs and nods in agreement before he's glancing around again at the masses of people. “Are you sure Tim's ok, I really think he should have been back by – ”

“Oy, over here!” comes the shout, and from the assembled gaggle, Tim emerges, looking delighted and smug and red-faced, his cheeks and the top of his nose having caught the sun. He adjusts his cap from where it's been jauntily knocked, and he's somehow gained the most tacky pair of rainbow sunglasses and at least five new roughly slapped on stickers since he vanished.

“Finally!” Sasha shouts back to him. “Took your time!”

“OK!” Tim says, clearly having not heard her or chosen not to. “Firstly, very important, on the alcohol front, ta-dah!” he gestures at his now bulging backpack. “Who's the man, huh, who delivers on his promises?”

“Like some sort of boozy Santa,” Sasha agrees, and unzips the bag to get a better look. “Someone's had a few on the job already!”

Tim makes a face. “Only one!”

“Tim, are you thirteen, what you doing buying us this shite!” Sasha rootles around, pushing the Heineken cans out of the way and pulling half-out the three litre bottle of Frosty Jack's.

“They don't sell White Lightning any more!”

“For good reason!”

“C'mon, it'll be a reminder of old times! A misspent youth...”

“Not all of us hung about the parks getting wankered off cheap cider, Timothy.”

Martin's letting the rhythm of their conversation wash over him. Someone gave him a big beaming grin two minutes ago as they passed, an easy and appreciative look-over, and the heat of that interaction hasn't quite left his cheeks.

“And secondly, if I can be allowed to get a word in edgeways – ”

“You may.”

“A kindness, m' lady.”

“Get on with it, serf.”

“Secondly, guys, look, they were giving them out for free!”

Tim presents his snaffled haul, his palms full of colours and patterns. A collection of cheaply-made paper flags, clearly printed and folded over and stuck onto cocktail sticks. There's a good number of them Martin doesn't recognise, but he doesn't want to feel ignorant by asking, so he keeps quiet.

“Sash, Sash, Sash,” Tim sing-songs at her.

“Tim, Tim, Tim,” she warbles back in a faux operatic voice.

“Got this one 'specially.”

“Charmer,” she smiles, but she allows Tim to stretch up to the height she's achieved with some seriously fuck-off heels, to plant the little flag behind her ear like a flower. She makes a show of preening, twirling it dramatically so the blue, white and pink of the stripes blur together for a moment. “It's acceptable.”

“You're too gracious,” Tim gives a mock bow. He's already stuck his blue, purple and pink flag into one of the belt loops of his jeans, the corner of it already bent slightly at the rough treatment.

He then turns to Martin.

“Let's spruce you up then Marto!”

Martin's in half a mind to refuse. It took a lot for him to even come here, and he's still not quite gotten rid of the tension that's strung across his shoulders. But he sets his jaw and knows he can always pocket them so no-one can see later.

He shyly grabs a multicolour pride flag from Tim's open hands. Then, daring, almost surprising himself, he grabs a second flag.

Sasha gives him an elbow nudge and a smile. Tim gives a whoop and a cheer and attempts to crush them both into a poorly aimed hug, before he shoves the rest of his haul into his trouser pockets.

Martin doesn't stick his own flags anywhere. He holds them fisted in his palm all day, over-aware of them, doing his best to protect them from the tides of people even though they eventually get a bit bashed and crumpled.

Tim's all for spending the night out on the town. But they spend most of the afternoon baking and hot, covered in glitter and day-drinking, finding a park along the way and casting themselves limblessly on the grass, so it's early yet when they start away from the street parties and thumping dance music. Tim ends the day with one cheek striped blue, one pink and his forehead purple, with some face-paint he's somehow gotten somewhere, waxing effusive about someone he danced to Taylor Swift with and didn't get her number: 'stunning, honestly, Martin, she was like one of those hot 1940's Hollywood people.'

“Didn't know you were into grandmas, Tim,” Sasha mumbles, half the words directed into Martin's ruin of hair. She's taken off her heels – which Tim is now holding, having tried and failed to get them to fit – and as the most sober one, Martin's carrying her on his back as she half dozes, sleepy and headachy from the music.

Martin hasn't checked his phone in hours. He's still got the little flags crushed in his grip. Tim keeps trying to hide a bear pride flag on Martin when he's not looking, and giving a giggling squawking protestation whenever he gets caught.

It's been a good day. Martin's head is buzzy on shit cider, and he's lost his bowtie, but he keeps looking at his little flags and smiling.

It's been a really good day, he thinks.

Restored from their dramatic hangovers, Monday comes. Martin arrives huffing and delayed from the Tube to see Tim's stuck his flag so it stands battered and proud over the lid of his laptop. Sasha's made her small desk teddy bear hold hers. And it's the memory of the day, the sun and the heat and the wild dizzying lack of expectations of it all, that gives him the courage to bring the flags he carefully preserved in on Tuesday, to put them jutting out of the mug on his desk that holds his stationery.

Honestly, he doesn't expect anyone to comment on them. It's not like anyone else comes down to their offices anyway.

So it's a surprise when Jon, striding past their desks, stops. Looks at the  multicolour flag with its bent edging. Its sister flag, the stripes of grey, white and purple only a little sun-faded.

Tim has been lost to Archive Storage for hours now, Sasha hard cross-referencing over at another department. Martin always feels like he's failed some sort of test he didn't know he was taking, when he's in the room with Jon alone.

Martin stiffens but Jon just looks for  moment.

“Where did you get them?” he asks briskly, gesturing.

“Oh!” Martin says, relieved that Jon's not stopped to tell him how poor his filing skills are again. “It was, erm, Pride? At the weekend. Tim, he got some for all of us.”

“Hm,” Jon nods. Still staring at Martin's flags. Especially the one Martin had hesitated over, held that bit tighter in his grip. He has an expression on his face, but Martin doesn't know what it is. He rarely knows how to read Jon.

“I think Tim might still have some!” Martin says, anxious to add something in this interaction he doesn't quite know how to navigate. “If you – you wanted any of your own?”

Jon pauses, gives Martin a sharp look as though annoyed he'd mentioned it, but then his face softens, and he looks at the flags again.

“I'll ask him,” he says, giving a short, hard nod. “No need to disrupt him when he's doing something productive.”

“Right,” Martin says weakly.

Jon gives him another nod, and then he vanishes back into his office, leaving Martin unsure of what's just happened.

(Later that week, Martin sees the flags struck into the soil of Jon's beleaguered desk cactus. The blue, pink and purple flag like Tim's. The grey, purple and white flag like Martin's. He doesn't comment, doesn't think Jon would like the attention. But he smile to see it nonetheless).

[xtruss]

After 604 Years, White Storks are Nesting in Britain Again

Despite their 600-year absence, white storks have remained an important symbol in folklore, children’s stories, on pub and hotel signs, and in family names and nicknames down the centuries.

As part of ongoing efforts to restore nature in the U.K., a project is bringing beloved white storks back to the British countryside.

— July 15, 2020 | National Geographic | By Isabella Tree

A female white stork greets her mate as he brings nesting material to the top of an oak tree at Knepp Estate, in southeastern England. This year, white storks at Knepp became the first of their kind known to have bred in Britain since 1414.

Britain's White Stork Project, which aims to establish 50 breeding pairs by 2030, is part of a wider effort to restore nature.

KNEPP ESTATE, ENGLAND — High in an oak tree in the county of West Sussex, in southeastern England, a pair of free-flying white storks hatched three chicks. It was May 6, 2020, a landmark moment: It had been 604 years since the previous written record of white storks breeding anywhere in Britain. Two weeks after those first chicks emerged at Knepp Estate, another pair of storks, in another shaggy nest of sticks in a nearby oak, hatched three more.

“This achievement is beyond thrilling. We dreamed of this moment, and now the storks have done it—we have British-born chicks again!” says Tim Mackrill, a reintroduction expert with the White Stork Project. Launched in 2016, the project aims to establish 50 breeding pairs of white storks in southern Britain by 2030.

More than three feet tall, with snow-white bodies, black wings spanning seven feet, and long, red legs, white storks often nest on roofs in towns and villages across Europe, where they’re much loved. As spring migrants from wintering grounds in Kenya and Uganda and as far south as South Africa, they’re associated with good luck and rebirth—hence the fairy tale of white storks delivering new-born babies in slings from their beaks. The joyful bill-clattering of a courting pair atop their nest—a resonant knocking made by the rapid opening and closing of their beak, with head thrown back to amplify the sound through their throat pouch—associates white storks with marital tenderness.

No one knows for certain why storks disappeared from Britain, though their appearance on the menus of medieval banquets suggests that they may simply have been targeted for food. Despite their 600-year absence, however, white storks have remained an important symbol, featuring in folklore, children’s stories and illuminated manuscripts, on pub and hotel signs, and in family names and nicknames down the centuries. The White Stork Project hopes that excitement about the return of these charismatic birds will spark greater public interest in nature recovery in the U.K. and, perhaps, pave the way for more species reintroductions.

In recent months, the newcomers at Knepp indeed have been a cause for celebration—a distraction from the gloomy statistics of COVID-19 and a focus of public empathy, their actions even seeming to mirror those of humans under lockdown. At the end of March as people hunkered at home, the white storks began incubating their eggs. In mid-May with travel restrictions to nature areas in the U.K.lifted, the two sets of eggs hatched, allowing hundreds of visitors to see the chicks for themselves.

In the past few days, the first set of chicks have fledged the nest, flying down to the ground to feed on grasshoppers under the watchful eye of their parents and roosting in nearby trees at night. During the coming weeks, just as airline flights begin opening up and people take to the skies once more, the adventurous young storks will fly farther afield, perhaps even following their parents and popping over to Europe for a spell.

Although recent decades have been hard on white storks in Europe, they aren’t endangered. Draining of wetlands, habitat for amphibians and small fish the birds eat, and pesticide-driven absences of insects that supplement their diet, combined with fatalities from collisions with power lines, have led to declines in many parts of Europe. These losses in part have been offset by reintroductions in France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, and Sweden.

Emblems of a Wider Movement

In the U.K.—one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, ranked 189th out of 218 countries, according to a Biodiversity Intactness Index run by the Predicts project—more than two-fifths of mammals, insects, birds, and other wildlife have seen significant declines since the 1970s. White storks are emblematic of a wider movement to repair nature in the country, of which Knepp Estate—run by my husband, Charlie Burrell, and me—is a pioneer.

To kickstart natural processes, in 2000 we began rewilding our 3,500 acres of depleted, loss-making farmland. This hinged on restoring the river, ponds, and wetlands, allowing thorny scrub and trees to regenerate, and introducing free-roaming herbivores such as old English longhorn cattle, Exmoor ponies, and Tamworth pigs as proxies of extinct aurochs, tarpans, and wild boars. Then we stood back and allowed nature to take over.

By browsing, rootling, trampling, wallowing, and dispersing seeds in their dung, these animals have created complex, novel ecosystems, swiftly and with astonishing results. Knepp is now a breeding hot spot for endangered nightingales, turtle doves, and purple emperor butterflies. It’s home to all five species of owls In the U.K. and 13 of the 18 bat species. More than 1,600 insect species have been recorded, many of them nationally rare. All these creatures have found haven at Knepp on their own, attracted by emerging habitats and food resources.

The white storks, however, have needed help to re-establish themselves. Every year, 20 or so of the birds venture to England from Europe, but finding no other storks nesting here, they fly on. Like herons and egrets, white storks nest in colonies for safety in numbers, social learning, and ease of finding a replacement should a mate die. Without this group reassurance, they’re unlikely to attempt to breed.

European reintroduction projects have pioneered a way of mimicking a colony by raising white storks in large pens in open countryside, using non-flying rescue birds and captive-bred birds with clipped wings, to attract wild storks. Eventually, wild birds breed with the captive storks, and their offspring migrate, returning loyally to their natal site. (Read about the resurgance of white storks in France.)

In 2016, the government-approved White Stork Project chose Knepp as its starter site. The project is a partnership among three private landowners and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, an international charity founded by writer Gerald Durrell to save species from extinction; the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, experts in bird reintroductions across Europe; and Cotswold Wildlife Park, a privately owned zoo in Oxfordshire. Knepp’s biodiverse wetlands and grasslands and open-grown trees for nesting are perfect habitat for storks. (Coincidentally, the name of the village of Storrington, just nine miles from Knepp, is derived from Estorchestone, meaning Abode of the Storks in Saxon English. The village sign features two white storks.) Two other locations—Wadhurst Park Estate, in East Sussex, and Wintershall Estate, in Surrey—were identified for establishing supplementary release pens the following year.

Knepp welcomed the first cohort of 20 juvenile storks donated from Warsaw Zoo, in Poland, into its six-acre pen in December 2016. With them were four non-flying Polish wild adults—birds injured in road accidents or by power-lines—to help instill natural social behavior in the juveniles. This replicates successful reintroductions in Sweden and Alsace, in France, where a breeding program begun in 1976 has seen white stork numbers grow from fewer than 10 mating pairs to more than 600 today.

One of the nesting females at Knepp, a particularly bold five-year-old from the first set of Polish imports, flew to France in 2018, where she spent a year with wild birds before returning to Knepp to pair up with one of the storks in her pen. (We know this because of reported sightings identifying the conspicuous ring-tag on her leg.) Another GPS-tagged juvenile raised at Knepp migrated to Rabat, Morocco, last year and is now in Spain. The male of the other nesting pair is a wild bird, one of several already attracted by the presence of the new colony.

Native or Not?

Not everyone in the U.K. embraces the White Stork Project. Opponents argue that historical evidence for white storks in Britain is slim and that they shouldn’t be considered a native species. Alfred Newton in A Dictionary of Birds, published in 1896, thought the white stork “had never been a native or even inhabitant of this country.”

Moreover, critics say, for this “new” species to attain “native” status, the birds should form colonies on their own, without human involvement. They point to the spontaneous recent arrivals in southeastern England of little egrets and great white egrets. “I would rather…allow natural colonization of our birdlife,” says Lizzie Bruce, director of British Birds magazine. To her, the white stork effort “feels more like a vanity project, especially as the species is of least concern” for conservation triage.

Birders echo that sentiment on social media, saying it would be better to focus not on a flamboyant species that isn’t endangered but on birds, such as the tree sparrow, that are struggling to survive but have less obvious appeal. Some conservationists who worry about the effects white storks might have on habitats or prey species such as insects and amphibians have called for environmental impact studies. This seems an impossible challenge, given the potential extent of the birds’ feeding range in southeastern England, the relatively small number of storks involved, and the variety of their food sources, including earthworms.

None of these criticisms trouble Ian Newton, a former visiting professor of ornithology at the University of Oxford and former senior ornithologist at the Natural Environment Research Council, the U.K.’s leading public funder of environmental science. (Newton is not affiliated with the White Stork Project.) The white stork, he says, is represented in bone remains at the Bronze Age site of Jarlshof, in Shetland; the Iron Age site of Dragonby, in Lincolnshire; the Roman site of Silchester, in Hampshire; and the Saxon site at Westminster Abbey, in London—all from long before the previous written record, in 1416, of white storks nesting in Britain.

“If we restrict ourselves to reintroducing species well-recorded in the historical record, we would exclude from consideration all those species which disappeared earlier but for which Britain still offers suitable habitat,” such as Dalmatian pelicans, night herons, and eagle owls, Newton says. Reintroductions, to his mind, offer not only the joy of seeing lost species return but also great potential for conservation.

“Generally speaking, the more widespread a species within its natural range, the more abundant and secure it is in the longer term,” Newton says, adding that reintroductions of charismatic species attract “an enormous amount of interest and support from the general public. This can benefit local economies and attract money into conservation that would otherwise be spent on other activities.” Further, the storks themselves may bolster other species. In Europe, their gigantic, shaggy nests provide nesting habitats for numerous birds such as starlings and house and tree sparrows.

Knepp’s white storks have already become something of a media phenomenon, with extensive coverage domestically but also by French and Polish TV. More than 2,500 visitors have seen the chicks since COVID-19 restrictions were relaxed, and 20 miles away, a gigantic mural on the city of Brighton’s busy North Road depicts white storks flying in to feed their chicks. The mural, expressing a heightened appreciation for both clean air and nature under lockdown, exhorts us to Let Nature Breathe—a suggestion, perhaps, that the U.K.’s magnificent white storks indeed are heralding new beginnings.

— Editor's note: This story was corrected on July 17, 2020, to say white storks had been gone from Britain for 604 years and that the juvenile that migrated to Morocco in 2019 is now in Spain.

— Isabella Tree is a freelance journalist and author. In 2018, her book Wilding—Returning Nature to Our Farm won the Richard Jefferies Award for Nature Writing and was voted one of the 10 best science books by Smithsonian magazine.

[sunnyspetscorner21]

Sunny's Pets Corner Warthog Warthog, with bags under their eyes, double sets of tusks and coarse-haired bodies are found throughout Southern Africa and are often rootling around close to camps. They’re delightful to watch as they trot about, tails straight up in the air, or kneeling on their front legs snuffling about for food. Don’t be fooled by their cutesiness, though, they can be vicious if challenged but enjoy a sweet, symbiotic relationship with some of their fellow African creatures. #sunnyspetscorner #wherehomeisntahomewithoutfurryfriends #sunnypettips #sunnysfunfacts #sunnyshealthtips #petsmatter #petfriendly #pethealth #petsofinstagram 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐗🐗🐗🐗🐗 https://www.instagram.com/p/CRiZtcJgUsb/?utm_medium=tumblr

[readyjetgotrash]

Here’s the updated Rootle schedule from 12/17/17 to 12/23/17. The blank parts are now filled.

Family Night this week is Wild Kratts: A Creature Christmas, with the Ready Jet Go Christmas special airing right after that.

NOTES:

-Thomas leaves PBS for good in 2018

-Nature Cat season 2 premieres on January 1, 2018

-Peep and the Big Wide World arrives on the schedule in January

-Odd Squad: World Turned Odd premieres January 15

-Pinkalicious and Peterrific premieres February 19

-Splash and Bubbles: Pole to Pole is still in limbo

[bellablackhart]

[weebird20art]

Thought I'd join in Art vs Artist this year and also do a little intro for any new followers.

I'm Laura, the artist behind weebird20art, and I love to illustrate the weird and wonderful! I also like to dabble in handmade book binding and creature sculpts!

This last year has been a whirlwind of new things for me as I've illustrated a children's picture book titled 'Miss Perilla Magilla and Her Marvellous Desk', about a steampunk inventor and her crazy creations.

I really love to create intricate ink drawings, and this year I learned they're called wimmelbilds, a german term meaning 'teeming picture'. My first wimmelbild, Castle Teapot got accepted to be displayed in a gallery! It's still there on display in the Ulster Museum until Jan 23rd 2023.

I took part in Game of Shrooms in June and hid my very first Rootle sculpts around the grounds of Belfast Castle (though back then they were called Root Dudes) for people to search for and find to take home and enjoy. I met some lovely people as they joined in the fun and hope to take part in June 2023!

I've started up an Etsy store selling my wimmelbild illustrations, custom portraits and leather books and have these things as well as my little Rootle sculpts in a local shop that sells handmade goods.

I hope you all stay with me going into 2023 and thank you so much for all your support by liking and sharing my posts as well as purchasing my art....it allows me to spend more time doing what I love and creating magical things!

[xleafyheartx]

A bit about Jix vs. his FC, Pickett

Pickett (depicted here in this post) is Jix’s FC, but there are a lot of differences between him and Pickett. Since Jix has been getting some new rp partners, I just want to clarify a bit about what Jix looks like and what he’s like biologically.

First of all, Jix is a leafling, not a bowtruckle. He can talk, while Pickett cannot, and he is more intelligent than the average bowtruckle. Jix is the same size as Pickett in terms of body, but he has a lot more treelike branches on his head and and miniature oak leaves all over them.

Jix is about one foot tall in total, and he looks like a miniature oak tree from roots to the tops of his branches. Unlike Pickett, Jix’s whole body is not green. His head, torso, arms, branches, and hands are brown and covered with bark-like skin. Only his roots and leaves are green, and Jix has more roots than Pickett. Well, probably three or four main roots, but then he has a lot of little rootlings and root hairs that Pickett doesn’t have.

Pickett’s face is perfect for Jix, though. The proportions are all correct, with his tiny black beady eyes, and his little green tongue. Just imagine a lot more branches and leaves on top. Since Jix is an oaken variety of leafling (different species mimic different trees), his leaves look like oak leaves, specifically white oak leaves.

However, Jix is a magical creature and not a true plant, just like Pickett. So even though he can drink and take up nutrients through his roots, he looks like a tree, and some of his biology function like a tree’s (falling leaves, leaves turning colors with seasons, susceptibility to plant diseases like root rot fungus, etc.), Jix is a magical animal, not a plant. He’s a tiny tree fae. So he actually does have flesh and blood and bone inside his body. He has little organs, like a stomach and a beating heart, and a tiny brain, etc, and he is warm to the touch.

Someone drew a gorgeous fanart for me of Jix that looks so much more like him than his FC, so I encourage people to take a look at it over in this post here to see what Jix looks like from roots to leaves.

Thanks for reading! ♡❧

[sasha-whos-askin-racket]

"tackles you to the ground" for connor/cutter? haha

This was perhaps not how he’d intended this day to go.He’d intended the usual - wake up, breakfast, work, dinosaur rampage, fix it, back home, shower, eat, sleep.He hadn’t intended to be lying here with a mouthful of dust and an arm that felt like it’d been yanked out of its socket, rotated three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, and then shoved back in again.But this was Connor, and Connor was unpredictable, and stupid, so really somebody should have seen it coming.

This was how the circumstances had unravelled as far as he was concerned - one minute they’d been casually going after Creature Of The Week (it was a Coelophysis, which seemed to enjoy eating pigeons and rootling through bins) and the next, he’d been in a heap on the floor with his knee wedged in his armpit and a wriggling Scotsman who could curse for England crawling off of him.Well, how was he supposed to know the damned thing was heading straight for him? It wasn’t as if he’d been informed of it before he’d been rugby-tackled into the dirt by his University Professor, for goodness sakes.

He lay there for a few moments after Cutter scrambled away, winded, aching, and with his arm trapped under his body in the most undignified of positions, waiting until the sharp pain had subsided to a throbbing so dull enough it allowed him to actually move.However, before he could draw in a deep enough breath to consider engaging in any sort of strenuous motion, a small sneakered foot came into contact with his ribs, and he groaned.“Good. I was starting to think you were dead, and I really can’t afford a funeral on top of this months rent on the paycheck we’ve got.” came Abby’s bright voice from somewhere up above him.“Ain’t you ever heard of don’t kick a man when he’s down?” Asked Connor, shifting himself into a position where he’s sort-of sitting up.“Yeah. But I’m not sure if you quite fit the criteria for ‘man’, if you understand?” Abby responds with a grin, though she does offer him her hand so he can stand up, which he willingly accepts.

Connor rubbed his aching shoulder, letting out a long huff, looking at Abby with the slightly disgruntled attitude of one who had just been knocked over by a stampeding Scotsman without so much as a how-do-ya-do.  “Fair warning next time, yeah?”Abby stared at him as if he’d grown an extra head or two. “Fair warning? We were all yelling you enough! Stephen’s next way of getting your attention was going to be by shooting at you.”Connor pulled a face. “Well I’m mighty glad Cutter decided against it.”Abby shook her head. “Nope. That was me. Cutter was content to let it eat you.”Connor’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking?”“Nope. Seemed to think you’d cause him less trouble if you got eaten by it. And technically he’s not exactly wrong.”

Connor shrugged. “Yeah, well, thanks…I guess. Even if my arm does feel like it’s just been steamrollered.”“Well, it was that or get munched on by a Triassic terror. Lesser of two evils, beggars can’t be choosers and all that.” Abby told him, punching him lightly on the opposite arm.Connor nodded. “I’d better go back to the car, else he’ll have my guts for garters.”“Okay. Oh, and Connor?”“Yeah?”“…Watch your back.”“For God’s sake!”

[denofgeek]

There are many reasons why Alien and Aliens are such unforgettable films: the dark underlying themes, the quality of the acting, the sheer artistry evident in their design and composition.

But one of the reasons why these aging films remain so compelling is because they imply as much as they show: 1979’s Alien may be infamous for its graphic birth sequence, but it raises so many questions that, at present, remain unanswered. How long had the crashed alien ship sat undiscovered on LV-426, as the planet later became known? What were all those eggs doing in its belly? And foremost, just how intelligent is the creature we see emerge from John Hurt’s torso? Ridley Scott may be busy rootling around in the early years of the Alien universe with Prometheus and this year's Alien: Covenant, but those deeper mysteries remain, at least at the time of writing, largely untouched...

[catsafarithewriter]

"Who did this to you" Haru and Baron

At Baron’s question, Haru’s hand hesitated at the door handle. She glanced back at her companion, a weak smile on her lips.

“Did what?”

“Changed you into someone you’re not.” Baron rounded on her, knocking the door shut before she could make a run for it. “The Haru I know wouldn’t turn her back on people in need - she’d want to help, she’d want to fight. She’d care.”

Haru looked to the window, where she could see the creatures terrorising the small town. She offered a halfhearted, lopsided smile. “Have you seen what kind of monsters we’re dealing with here? I mean, harpies, really? We can’t fight them.”

“That’s never stopped us before.”

“Well then, you’re a fool. And so am I apparently. I’m getting out of here.” She tugged at the door, but Baron held it tightly shut. “You can’t keep me here forever, Baron.”

“What’s happened to you?” Bright green eyes searched dark brown, grasping for an answer. “What are you? Are you a copy, a fake? Or has something changed you?”

The screeching of the harpies drew closer, and Haru dropped back from the doorway impatiently. “We don’t have time for this. We have to go.”

“Where is the Haru I know? What have you done to her?”

“Geez, you’re really hung up on this, aren’t you?”

“I’ve had enough of doppelgängers and duplicates to last my long lifetime,” Baron hissed. “Where. Is. She?”

Haru sighed, rolling her head back in an exasperated, uncharacteristic motion. “She’s right here, you doofus. Well, physically, anyway.”

Baron looked at his companion with new eyes. “You’re a body snatcher?”

“That’s a crude way of looking at it-”

“What’s happened to the real Haru?”

The snatcher looked faintly insulted. “I’m just as real as she is, you know. I have all her memories, all her thoughts…” It tapped it’s head with a smirk. “Everything is still locked up here, but, oh… well, mostly. She’s keeping a few things hidden, but that won’t last long.”

“Get out of her.”

“And go where? My kind cannot survive long outside a host-”

“Maybe you should have considered that before stealing Haru’s body.”

“My previous host was killed by the harpies,” it protested hotly. “And then there was Haru, a living body when my current one was dying. What else should I have done?”

“You shouldn’t have stolen another person’s life in lieu of your own!” Baron roared. “You don’t get to choose for someone else to take your place when death comes. Now get out of her.”

“And risk death? I think not.”

“You’re crushing her,” Baron snapped. “The human body cannot withstand two souls - your forced stay will literally be smothering her.”

“All this for a single human,” the snatcher muttered. It eyed Baron. “You’re really not going to let me leave until I’m out of this body, are you?”

“No.”

“Fine. But I’m not giving up to death so easily.”

With a shuddering gasp, the snatcher’s soul poured out of Haru’s mouth and smothered Baron. Green eyes clouded.He buckled over in a fit of coughing, and when he straightened, the eyes were bright green again.

Clutching her head, Haru peered at her companion. “Baron?”

A lopsided grin. “Try again, lady.”

“Get out of him.”

The snatcher huffed. “You two are like a broken record.” It stretched, easing into the feel of the new body with unconcerned ease. “So, this is a Creation, huh? I can’t say it lives up to all the hype - but if it’s true about the no-aging, then I’m not going to complain.” It paused, cocking its head to one side. “Oh, come on, Baron; there’s no need to be like that. I’ve left her, haven’t I? No agreement technically broken.”

Haru grabbed the cane off the snatcher and bared it at the creature. “Let him go.”

“You wouldn’t attack a friend, would you?” the snatcher asked. “I’ve been inside your head, lady; I know just how deeply your feelings run...”

“You know nothing about me.”

“I beg to differ. I’ve rootled round in your head and, oh, the confusion you have in your mind is a beauty to behold. I mean, falling for a Creation? He’s a figurine, a puppet - you’re not even sure he is capable of love-”

“That’s a lie!”

“Oh, you don’t think it often, but that thought is there. Quiet. Niggling. Insistent. Not all love, obviously, but just perhaps the love you’re hoping for.” The snatcher leant towards Haru, who prodded it in the chest with the cane to keep it from coming any closer. “And what if I told you that you were right? He really is nothing more than a hollow shell, an imitation of life. Oh, a convincing one, but a sham nonetheless.”

“Then I would call you a liar.”

“He’s a performer dancing on strings, a strange little Creation who likes to think he’s real - and what’s worse, you fell for it.” Painfully familiar green eyes bore into hers, tainted by a cruelty that she had never seen before. “He would never be able to truly love you.”