Ben Salt

⚠️ I've moved! 👉🏻 Find me @hellobensalt 🌿

🐘 Now also @[email protected]

[Ben Salt @_bensalt]

After years thinking there was no good alternative to an underscore in my Twitter handle, I'm now @hellobensalt across social media. 🤟🏻

Head over there to say "hello" and for a break from the doomscroll. 🌿

(I'm keeping this profile open, as many links back to it still exist.)

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

A 🧵 on yesterday's partial #SolarEclipse. Because it wasn't visible in Northern Thailand, where I am.

But there were some great captures from elsewhere. Here's one by @RealPratyush1 from a moving train in India.

What about you, did you see it? /1

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

Barcelona, 1909

On Sunday, April 25, 1909, at 11 in the morning, Ricard de Baños set up a camera on a wagon that was attached to a tram.

The result is this extraordinary footage of the history of Barcelona. (Colourisation and sound added using AI.)

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

Cock-a-dooooooo... Feeling strong and ready to tackle the day, but just too big, too early 🐓

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

Angels do exist. This is a Sea Angel, a mollusk found in the Artic Ocean and cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. #WorldOceansDay

They are born with shells, which are lost as they grow into adulthood, transforming like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
https://t.co/Xfpcys6giM

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

A walk among the green of rural Thailand.

"Perhaps beauty is all around us, even in a fleeting moment, a brief touch, a faint whisper. We just need to stop, look up and notice it. To be allowed the perspective to see and hear it." @impacttravelall
https://t.co/vDNOuO3pZ9

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

🧵about bees from last year👇 #WorldBeeDay

🐝 Where once we may have flailed wildly at the sight of a bee, now we more often look on in fascination, even pride, at the bees merrily buzzing around our gardens. Here's to much much more of that.

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

The atoms that make each of us were once inhaled by distant ancestors, formed ancient living beings, were scattered among trees, across the Earth and beyond among stars. And that's were one day they'll return.

Unfathomable scales, a fascinating watch.

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

Overwhelmed by the eruption of flavour from a particularly tasty nut. Let the mouth party begin.
https://t.co/ETNmMxH29J

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

How amazing is this?! 🪐

Saturn rises majestically from behind the Moon during a lunar occultation - when the Moon appears to move in front of another object in the sky.

With its rings, Saturn always looks unreal to me, like a painting in the night sky.

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

Sing, little one! Sing! 🎶🎶

Wonderful to see those beak movements close up - thank you @Lucy_Lapwing & @Natures_Voice

And how uplifting is it to wake up to a dawn chorus? Or to be out in nature and hear birdsong.

Go do it now - or soon. #DawnChorusDay

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

It's already #InternationalDarkSkyWeek again. Another year rocketing around the Sun on our little blue dot. Another year whizzing by.

And, if you've ever been somewhere truly dark and looked up at a night sky full of stars, you'll know how magical it is.

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

The amazing sight of thousands of starlings swooping, wheeling and darting across the sky in perfect unison.

With the sound on, you'll understand why these flocks are known as "murmurations": the rustle of thousands of pairs of wings. @01000011S

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

To open his mind, Darwin had a “thinking path” - a woodland path he’d regularly walk down while pondering his significant contribution to our understanding of the world around us. We could all do with one of these. (1/5)

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

We are the inhabitants of a small, fragile world filled with beauty, magic and wonder. It's our tiny blue dot in an infinite universe. Our collective fingerprint - everything we are, everything we've ever known.

Explore, respect and cherish it.

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

I'll never tire of gazing up at vast, uninterrupted skies like this - the beginnings of another glorious coastal sunset. The wind sounds blustery in the audio, but it was only the sort that makes you feel even more alive.

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

Though they may be small, bees are nature's tiny miracle workers. Not only do they underpin food security, livelihoods & ecosystems, they're part of the complex & delicate balance that is nature & our survival. #WorldBeeDay 🐝🐝🐝

But there's much you may not know about them. /1

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

What amazing fact have I learnt today (while in quarantine with jet lag)? That baby porqupines are called porqupettes. 💚

They're tiny at birth and are born with a full set of soft quills that harden after a few hours.

Here's one eating corn on the cob. https://t.co/YuzbdIN9nv

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

When my travels began.

This memory popped up today. Now more than 10 years ago.

The monkey joined me as I walked through the rainforest of N Peru. He stayed there for an age, jabbered in my ears & shuffled around. A free lift.

Still one of my fav travel photos. What's yours?

[Ben Salt @hellobensalt]

Volume up. To cleanse your feed, the sounds of nature and a gentle breeze from the green of Northern Thailand.

As the intrepid crow flies, Myanmar lies 200 km across increasingly remote river valleys, mountains & tropical forests to the north. Laos is 100 km to the east.