Notices by Sarah Dal (sarahdalgulls@ecoevo.social)

@gemlog @FaithfullJohn the fire in the middle section I think, and the heat circulated around the rest and (I'm guessing) a back boiler too.. Very efficient use of a coal fire. This link explains from someone restoring once in their own house

https://mrvictorian.co.uk/2021/02/16/cast-iron-range/

@gemlog @FaithfullJohn ..I feel like 2, 3 and 4 are cooking/warming compartments, 4 has a hotplate for a pan. 1 might have been the oven, with the fire lit in the brick alcove in the middle of it all, or was the fire lit in 1 and the oven underneath 2?

@gemlog @FaithfullJohn I have a house with a back boiler, there's a tank of water in the chimney and heat from the coal fire can be directed to it to heat the hot water and radiators. I'm less familiar with this setup, with a full range, but presumably it's similar, there's a tank in the chimney that gets heated by the fire? I've boosted your question as I'm sure someone will know how a range works

Yardhope Shrine - a Romano-Celtic shrine thought to be dedicated to Codicius, on the Otterburn Ranges west of Holystone. It is possibly the result of Roman soldiers from a nearby camp using an existing Celtic shrine.

Discovered and excavated in the 1980s, the archaeology report is here - https://www.jstor.org/stable/526345

#Northumberland

Nearby is the South Yardhope Farm, presumably its situation on the ranges has stopped the last bits of metal getting stripped for scrap, although odd that absolutely nothing else appeared to survive.

(Well, I did spot a greenish cylinder in the grass but managed to stop myself picking it up just in time..)

Super pod of 140 Bottlenose dolphins spent several hours in Vidlin Voe, Shetland, today

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2025/11/09/bottlenose-dolphin-delight-in-vidlin-voe/

Including several calves, this is the largest dolphin pod ever recorded around the islands, and only the *fourth* ever record of this species in Shetland!

There's lots of videos on Shetland Orca & Cetacean Sightings Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/shetlandorcasightings

#Ceacean #Shetland #Dolphins #SuperPod

Cracking drone footage here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ik-po8RNY

Scotland's first skatepark to be dug up by archaeologists

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1jne4pry8go

MothBox, a low-cost open source automated invertebrate monitoring device, is looking for local vendors to start manufacturing an off-the-shelf unit

https://www.openscienceshop.org/join-the-mothbox-working-group-for-our-first-meeting/?ref=open-science-shop-blog-newsletter

#Mothbox

The UK may be about to lose access to Wikipedia as they've lost their High Court Challenge to OSA.

You can download Wikipedia by installing the @kiwix app https://kiwix.org/en/applications/

Then use https://library.kiwix.org/ to find Wikipedia, or any other interesting book. It will download a file (Wikipedia is 110gb) that you can then open in the Kiwix browser

#OSA #Kiwix #Wikipedia

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25380290.wikipedia-loses-online-safety-act-legal-challenge/#Echobox=1754914303-2

Saving an image to a bird

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/yes-you-can-store-data-on-a-bird-enthusiast-converts-png-to-bird-shaped-waveform-teaches-young-starling-to-recall-file-at-up-to-2mb-s

They converted an image to a waveform, played it to a young starling who imitated it well enough that it could be recorded and the waveform converted back to an image.

The linked video is full of info about bioacoustic monitoring too

If you're looking for a VPN, I really recommend http://mullvad.net

Based in Europe
Cheap - €5/month, no other pricing. I buy a month's worth when I need to
You can pay however you want, bank transfer, credit card, crypto, even post them a crisp €5 note

The simplicity of it makes it my fave. There's no sales or free trials, it's not cheaper if you buy 20 years with upfront. It has been reliable for what I use it for too.

"Should trans people have fewer rights? ‘Not in our name’, say over 35,000 women
Women tired of being told that their rights are threatened by trans people are using a petition to stand up for inclusive feminism"

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/society/should-trans-people-have-fewer-rights-not-in-our-name-say-over-35000-women/

"WARNING: Showing support for Palestine Action now constitutes a terrorism offence under UK law. Please bear this in mind if commenting on this article on social media."

https://novaramedia.com/2025/07/05/protesters-arrested-for-holding-i-support-palestine-action-signs/

"Absolutely stunning": astonishing footage shows falcon attacking foxes in Los Angeles

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/peregrine-falcon-attack-fox-los-angeles

@neil I just picked this up for £25 on ebay, disappointingly the thing on top doesn't rotate slowly while its in use (it's not meant to, tbf) but otherwise works great

#Gull

@alxsim just been alerted to *.argyle.social which appears to just be stolen profiles all following each other, lots are "nature" or bird based accounts and i can see many are copied from ecoevo.social, is it a server we might want to block?

https://beige.party/@RolloTreadway/114211453892528963

Pride Toronto loses corporate funding as Trump’s DEI purge has chilling effect

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/27/pride-toronto-loses-funding-trump-dei-purge

The pinkwashing is being hosed off (we all expected this - of course corporations would never actually have our back).

Expect more of this, yes in the UK, including losing workplace protections - join a union if you can!

#lgbtq+

Haltwhistle Walking Festival, including 3 day trek to celebrate 60 years of the Pennine Way

https://www.haltwhistlewalkingfestival.org/