Linda Birkin

@ljbees.bsky.social

382 Followers 434 Following

Freelance entomologist with many proverbial hats - especially ento outreach, citizen science & urban ecology, and wildlife gardening in small spaces. (She/her) https://linktr.ee/LJBees

A moth with black wings, spotted with yellow and white, with black-striped red underwing. Sitting on a green shirt with octopus patterns. An inset picture is of the caterpillar, yellow and black horozontal stripes.
Advert for the 'Bugs and Badges' walk. The image is of a museum drawer with bugs, food, beads and a picture of Linda in it. Text reads: Walk and Insect ID with community entomologist Dr Linda Birkin. Eat 'Pollinator's Pasta' and learn more about insect collaborative foods. Make your own bug badge or beaded broach with artist Amelia Diaz'. 21.06.26, 11am - 3.30pm. The Carousel, NG1 1FH. £30+.
View inside a green plastic water butt, now actually with water.
Two brown prongs of an earwig's cerci (the appendages on the back sometimes called pinchers) peeping out of a cluster of bright green leaves. The cerci are straight, indicating this is a female.
Picture of me, a white lady with short blonde hair, wearing a bright orange tshirt covered in colourful bug pictures and an explorer-style hat.
Advert for the bioblitz event, with nice wildlife images. Text: City Nature Challenge. 24th April. 13.30-15.00. Victoria Embankment Memorial Garden. Find and identify as many species as possible in 1h hour! Join us! Free event.
Poster about how to get involved with the City Nature Challenge. It's mostly text with some images of phone screens / flowers to indicate what you need to do. Text: How to join the City Nature Challenge! 1) Download iNaturalist, the most frequently-used community science platform for the city nature challenge (the app is free). 2) Find your local nature. Wildlife only, aka no gardens or pets. 3) Take pictures (they don't have to be fancy). You can use your smartphone. 4) Share your photos aka 'observations' to iNaturalist. This gives scientists and decision-markers CRITICAL DATA about urban nature.
A wooden block bee hotel, with drilled holes. Most of the holes have mud caps, many broken open. A bee with a pale fluffy face and big dark eyes is sticking his head out of the break in one cap, and another bee if the same species (with visible bright orange abdomen) has his own head so close to the entrance it look like they are kissing. Heart sticker emojis and a pink caption of 'smooch?' has been arranged around them.
Three realistic fake insect larvae on a white background. A brown dragonfly nymph, a green (glittery) diving beetle larvae, and a stonefly nymph.
A blank and white cat curled up on green bedding with colourful beetle prints.
Green metallic insect hiding inside a drilled hole in a wooden block.
A slightly blurry bumblebee visiting a bright pink camelia flower, against a very blue sky.
A white woman with short hair, wearing a long black coat and a red rucksack, points overdramatically at a big metal bee statue. Everyone is soggy.
A small christmas wreath made of conifer and holly, hung on a red brick wall.
A black and white cat being held up, looking annoyed, with an adjustable pink donut cushion around his neck to act as a cone.
A section of old red brick wall, still strong but showing some age. Clumps of bright green moss and pale lichens are scattered across the surface. Three spider webs are set into holes in the mortar between bricks; the dark tunnels of the retreata contrasting with the silvery-blue silk of the webbing, spread out about an inch from each hole in messy, scrunched up lace.
A white plastic extractor fan vent on a wooden laminate ceiling. A clear plastic bag has been taped over it, secured with red electrical tape.
A bird's nest in some bare elder branches.
A collage of 4 images of fungi. Top left is a pair of small jelly ears (squishy, folded brown shapes on a log); top right is an earthball, a yellow crinkly ball that looks a bit like a fancy bread; bottom left is a bunch of pale, thin mushrooms; bottom right is a collection of tiny bright orange blobs.
A rainbow visible through a train window, above a field of sheep.
Showing off a black scarf with orange/yellow fringe, with a pattern of a red/black/yellow millipede running the length of the scarf.
View from a train window, hills and trees.
Showing off the blue jacket covered in 'creepy crawlies' pattern, and lots of different insect pin badges all along the conference lanyard.
A wooden box labelled 'fidget toy library, please return after use', full of a selection of colourful fidget toys.
View down from the top balcony of a light, bright church hall holding a plant conference.
A collage of three insect photos. The first is a small black wasp with a big head, probably a Crossocerus species. The second is a small slender bee, probably a Lasioglossum species. The third is a tiny, iridescent green chalcid wasp.
Two images of roughly shield shaped bugs standing on green leaves. The bugs have orange patterns on their wing cases that make them look a bit like they are wearing a clinched waistcoat.
A grinning Linda holds a colourful cupcake up, to dramatically bite.
A hedgehog snuffling around the base of a watering can in the dark.
A pale skinned hand holding a large glass jar. It has an indented handle.
A harlequin ladybird on a green leaf. The ladybird is a dark bronze orange with black spots.
Repainted bee life cycle toys, to look more like red mason solitary bees.
A collage of photos of insects, plus a whiteboard with the list of species found that day. Insects are: a hoverfly larvae, a little cryptic ladybird (Scymnus?); Ectemnius digger wasp; Harlequin ladybirds, and a Lygus mirid plant bug (complete with little 💛).
Two cats on a brown wooden table. One cat is black and white and sitting on top of the table, his tail hanging down. The other cat is a light brown tabby, sitting below and to the side of the table, looking at the black and white cat. The tabby looks annoyed.
A repaint of the mosquito life cycle toys. Mostly it's made everything a bit more yellow.
Stages of repainting solitary bee life cycle toys. The larvae are now cream/white, some 'bee hotel' tubes are being made out of old green plastic and paper mache. The adult bee has been repainted to look like a red mason and is shown next to an image of it in an id guide.
A green plant stem liberally dotted with tiny light brown balls - these are the hollow dusk of dead aphids that have been parasitised, killed by the emerging wasps once the larvae have matured.
A view into a slightly chaotic conservatory. A black and white cat is peering out from a shelf, possibly looking suspicious at what he can see.
A green lacewing. It is an elongate green insect standing on some bark. Its wings are longer than the body and criss-crossed with lacy veins. The body and legs are green, its antenna are about as long again as the body, and its large eyes are a greenish-gold colour.
Four ladybird life cycle toys on a black background. They are: yellow eggs on a leaf, an orange and black pupae on a leaf, a black larvae with orange spots and an adult ladybird beetle with orange wings cases with black spots. They have been painted to look more like harlequin ladybirds.
A white brick porch wall, with a long line of black ants moving up it.
A dark bee with golden fluff at the edges, sitting on a dark background.
Three part collage of picture of a large (about an inch long) chafer beetle. It has dark brown wing cases dusted with white hairs, black head / thorax and brown antennae.
Eight miniatures from a Warhammer war cry game; hand painted. They are tree people, but the trees are bloody and covered in mushrooms and bone.
A flowering spike of a foxglove plant. The flowers are pink with white spots on the inside, with darker central patches. The focal flower of the picture is unusually wide.
A close in photo of a lot of very newly hatched ladybird larvae, on a green leaf background. They are black and curled up together, with the empty white egg cases underneath them.
Advert for the Glebe Science Fair. Sunday May 4th, 12 to 5pm. The Glebe, Stoke, ST4 1HG.
Close up of a small bumblebee licking a fingertip.
A collage of three pictures of a black and white cat, rolling around on black cat tree platforms.
A large black and yellow wasp resting on a wooden fence.
Close up of a dark grey t-shirt with a spiky, metal-band font logo saying 'Crab Museum', in the shape of a crab.
A mostly black cat, curled into a comfy ball on top of a red blanket.
A view up through the pink blossoms of a tree.
Advert for a webinar called "The Good, the Bad, and the Bugly." Online, 07/04/25, 6-7pm BST.
A screenshot, just the text 'locusts are weird' at the top of a page.
An orange and black mining bee (Andrena species) sitting on a wooden plank.
Low wooden 'popup park' planters at the Nottingham Ay-up Market, full of seasonal flowers.
A piece of Warhammer terrain, a weirdly meaty tree.
A black and white cat curled up on a grey blanket.