Diversity is a good thing, and so is having choices... We know that a lot of our followers have either migrated to where the skies are blue, or are considering doing so. We're already there, waiting for you: tinyurl.com/mariposabluesky See you there! 💙🦋

Good morning, and welcome to a new week! Our featured tour this week is a new one for 2025, and a very special one - Spring Wildflowers of the Picos de Europa takes our guests into one of Europe's most beautiful, dramatic & flower-filled landscapes. (1/3) mariposanature.com/tours/botanica…

With David Gibbs & Juan Pablo Cancela Vallejo, PhD as your guides, guests will be in the very best of hands - both professional ecologists, their plant (and butterfly, bird, et al) knowledge will mean that we will be perfectly equipped to enjoy every aspect of what we find during the week. (2/3)

David Gibbs Juan Pablo Cancela Vallejo, PhD BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland wildflowerhour This tour, like all our botanical holidays, will generate a donation to our friends at BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland to help support their important research & work - we've done this since our very first botanical tour, and are now Corporate Supporters of this brilliant conservation charity. (3/3)

A reminder that this exciting new botanical tour, led by the brilliant David Gibbs & Juan Pablo Cancela Vallejo, PhD, qualifies until midnight tonight for our early bird booking discount of £125, and generates a donation to support the conservation work of BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland. #BSBICorporateSponsor

Day 1 of the Mariposa #AdventCalendar brings you splashes of late autumn colour, from a brand new tour we're launching today! Autumn Bulbs of the Peloponnese, led by David Gibbs & Jon Dunn 🇺🇦 takes us to a Greek wildflower wonderland next October. (1/2)

Our intrepid botanist leader David Gibbs spent days exploring the Peloponnese finding the best sites for the best autumn-flowering bulbs, and other wildflowers. It's taken less than 12 hours for this new tour to start to take bookings - and small wonder, as it will be fabulous!

This brand-new tour has quickly moved to attract bookings, and is guaranteed to run 23-30 October 2025. Co-led by David Gibbs & Jon Dunn 🇺🇦, this one will be a lovely end to the autumn next year. (2/2) mariposanature.com/tours/botanica…

With Valentine's Day a heartbeat away, we thought we'd say it with flowers for our featured Tour of the Week, Spring Wildflowers of the Picos de Europa. 💘 Scheduled to run on 29 May - 5 June 2025, this will be a journey into a wildflower paradise. (1/3) mariposanature.com/tours/botanica…

We'll be there at a time when the lower lying meadows, valleys and gorges are bursting with flowers, and the high alpine grassland is studded with many special plants. Our leaders will be the experienced team of professional ecologists David Gibbs, and Juan Pablo Cancela. (2/3)

BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland wildflowerhour David Gibbs Juan Pablo Cancela Vallejo, PhD This brand new tour promises to be a spectacular experience for the wildflower enthusiast - one not to be missed. Most importantly, it will also generate a donation to support the great conservation work undertaken by our good friends at BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland. (3/3) #BSBICorporateSponsor

Not just wildflowers! While our current featured tour of the week, Spring Wildflowers of the Picos de Europa, will certainly deliver a kaleidoscope of them, we always like to look at the bigger picture. Surrounded by wonderful scenery like this for the week, it's be hard not to!

Alpine orchids are red, Trumpet gentians are blue, We're off to the Picos, We'd love you to come too! Our featured tour of the week, Spring Wildflowers of the Picos de Europa, provides ample opportunities to feel the love blossom for alpine wildflowers of all colours. (1/2)

Our Fabulous Fuerteventura tour went in search of convergent evolution y'day, and found it - despite appearances, these aren't cacti! Euphorbia canariensis & rarer E. handiensis have evolved to deal with the same environmental issues as cacti, coming up with the same solutions.

Good morning, and welcome to the new week. Our featured tour is Spring Wildflowers of the Picos de Europa. An opportunity to go plant-hunting in a floral wonderland this spring, the tour will also generate a donation to BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland. mariposanature.com/tours/botanica…

Dactylorhiza from The Lots/Gruffy NR, Mendips, Somerset with my guesses re Kreutz taxonomy.

One of my local Platanthera chlorantha Greater Butterfly Orchids. Just caught them before going over

Boloria selene Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary and Argynnis adippe High Brown Fritillary in Glamorganshire a few days ago.

A few highlights from Kenfig last Saturday. The pale Pyramidal is presumably Anacamptis pyramidalis var dunensis? Warden Kenfig National Nature Reserve

Some amazing Marsh Orchids from Kenfig. Top left D. fuchsii, top right D. purpurella, middle D. purpurella var. atrata, bottom D. xgrandis, bottom right with such solid marks on the labellum possibly D. praetermissa var. junialis? Warden Kenfig National Nature Reserve BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland