All cards · October 28, 2026 · from the year 2042
The marsh came back, and so did its stripes.
Somerset Levels, England · 2042 (16 years ahead) · saltmarsh restoration · hand-tinted naturalist lithograph, sage, pearl grey, saffron
Why this card
The reported seed is the first-ever Somerset sighting of a zebra-striped bee in newly restored saltmarshes, taken as an early sign that recovery works. I imagine that restoration programme maturing over sixteen years into a wide, publicly loved network of tidal marshes that buffers floods and stores carbon, with the bee as its unofficial emblem and amateur bee-watching a local ritual. The lithograph shows the second-order outcome: ordinary people out at dawn on boardwalks with hand lenses, enjoying a marsh that had been missing for generations.