📣 Join us on Dec 11 @ 8PM (Bishkek), when Tshiring Lhamu Lama, founder of Snow Leopard Journey & Sisters will share her trailblazing efforts in the Dolpo #Himalayas to empower local youth and foster #coexistence between herders & #snowleopards 🐾 #Conservation snowleopardnetwork.org/2024/11/30/sln…

Received the first UK bound proof/ARC of Is A River Alive? today, 3.5 yrs after starting work on it. A happy waymark in a book’s journey. Neon-zing meander art by zzz Lovely to hold it in hand: it exists! Out 1 May 2025: dedicated to the rivers & their guardians.

Update on Dr Sarah Benn’s case ⬇️

Butterflies extinct in NL: Red-underwing Skipper (kalkgraslanddikkopje, S sertorius). Disappeared a few years before I started butterflying mid-1980s, but was then still present at this Belgian site 2km across the border. A typical species of steep calcareous grasslands.

What happens in the Coto Donana has repercussions for bird populations all across the east Atlantic flyway. Unfortunately Donana is in a very poor state owing to encroachments and proliferation of irrigated fruit farms. It has dried out as have most other Andalusian wetlands.

As Starmer has now singled out the HS2 bat tunnel as an example of absurd environmental protections, its time to make the argument that it shows why we need *more* protections for Nature, rather than less. At the moment we have a system where there are insufficient generalised

Unlikely as it seems this is the site where Hampshire’s first Lizard Orchid for 90yrs was found in 2022. Sadly no more courtesy of the local highways authority - it’s just about under the digger - fortunately there were a few more discovered at another site shortly after. 😢

Butterflies extinct in NL: Camberwell Beauty (rouwmantel, N antiopa). Last Dutch population until 1964, after that only a few migrants every year, in some summers (1995, 2006, 2021) invasions from NE, E or SE. Some manage to hibernate, but so far no reproduction anymore.

It is no coincidence that bats & newts are receiving flack for supposedly stopping infrastructure, house building & other development. These are some of the only wildlife which has substantive protections, both on the creatures themselves & their habitat. Most other parts of

Possibly Norfolk’s River Lugg moment🤔 over half a mile of WaterVole habitat destroyed + a gravel bed used by spawning Brown Trout now turned into a porridge of Clay silt

Sadly yet another deadly myth is doing the rounds and now I've actually seen a so-called rescue, AND one of these toxic self-professed 'hedgehog experts' repeat it, I must address it. FACT: Only full sized healthy hedgehogs can hibernate. Until they have reached that happy

The 'farmers' protest is a good time to remind people of the Just Stop Oil protestors who got 21 years, just for planning a protest. Two tier justice indeed.

🌍 This is a long story about my long Journey: Fighting for Donderberg, Save(d)Donderberg, a Vital Green Space in #Brussels! Below is my first post on X about Donderberg, but the real journey began in 2011. I vividly remember standing alongside my neighbors while pregnant,

What can you give to a river that needs everything? This Christmas I decided to give my river the gift of life, in the form of willows trees. I headed out on the River Roding in my canoe, from sunrise to sunset on the shortest day of the year, to see if I could hand harvest &

You have allowed our rivers & lakes to be abused for so long and to such an extent that major keystone species are now under existential threat. Stop politicising nature with more empty rhetoric, and allocate some of our tax £ to getting your own failing house in order first.

Butterfly of the Year 2024: Winner - NOT AWARDED, no outstanding candidate. First time it's not been awarded - this was the worst butterfly season of my 61 years... Instead, we have a But-a-Fly of the Year, the Downland Beefly Villa cingulata! Dr Erica McAlister

Butterfly of the Year 2024: Bottom Place, and relegated... Small Tortoiseshell - I saw 8 all year, only. Really worried about them... Going... and we don't really know why...

The main challenge with Butterfly of the Year 2024 was the battle for Bottom Place: High Brown Frit, Small Tort, 'Common', Adonis, Chalkhill & Holly blues (esp 2nd brood), Small Copper, Small Heath & Clouded Yellow were all dire! I saw 8 Small Copps, only...

Time to leave, but I’ll miss the constructive discussions across divides that were once possible here. Hoping the new place can avoid becoming an echo chamber - but still lacking the hunters farmers gamekeepers and countryside folk needed to challenge & engage the ecology folks!

#sophiefromromania is up early this morning and wants to say thank you to all her Twitter followers but please now join her on Instagram (rorycellan) and BlueSky (@rorycj.bsky.social) - the prof can also be found at diane1859 ( instagram) and dianecoyle1859.bsky.social (BlueSky)