Having so much fun with the moth trap - the birthday present that just keeps on giving...

Dark Spectacle (NFG) and the aptly named Beautiful Golden-Y were the best of today's haul - yesterday I was impressed by the tiny and cryptic House Moss-moth!

#mothsmatter #teammoth

We are excited to announce that booking is now open for the 2024 National Heathland Conference! To be held 10th-12th September in Wareham, Dorset, it will include presentations, field trips and opportunities for networking. Please spread the word!
nationalheathlandconference.org.uk

An exciting moment as we start the transformation of Speechly's Farm in the Great Fen into a wetland habitat.
We purchased Speechly’s Farm last year with funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and a major public appeal.
Read more at wildlifebcn.org/news/major-mil…

Orchids have street cred, but I love flowering #grasses just as much. I spent far too much time admiring the flowers and leaves of Lyme-grass Leymus arenarius on embryo dunes at Ainsdale this week...

wildflowerhour BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland

A rather random portion of #carrotsandpeas from my travels this week...
the top row from the Sefton Coast, the remainder from around Peterborough

Names in ALT

wildflowerhour BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland #wildflowerhour

A couple more #orchids from a dune slack on the Sefton Coast - Southern Marsh-orchid and possibly a Northern Marsh-orchid. Not a species I'm familiar with being a generally south-eastern botanist!

#wildflowerhour BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland wildflowerhour Wild Orchids UK & Ireland

An Early Marsh-orchid from the edge of a dune slack on the Sefton Coast. The small size and intense red colour is characteristic of Dactylorhiza incarnata subsp. coccinea, but other individuals were closer to subsp. incarnata...lots of puzzling...

#wildflowerhour BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland

The very beautiful Dune Pansy Viola tricolor subsp. curtisii from the Sefton Coast this week...

#wildflowerhour BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland

At the very end of a trip to the Sefton Coast, we finally caught up with a colony of freshly emerged Northern Dune Tiger Beetle - sunbathing, catching insects and cooling down in the shade of marram. Wonderful...

Dynamic Dunescapes Buglife Natural England

Now that's what I call a moth...

Giant Peacock Moth wowing our group and dwarfing all others this morning, in #LaBrenne

#WildlifeTravelling #GoneMothing #MothsMatter #FlyingTonight

A rare orchid that looks like a naked man has revealed itself in the grounds of St John’s.

The Orchis Simia is known as the ‘Naked Hanging Man Orchid’ or the ‘Monkey Orchid’ and is described as ‘the find of a lifetime’. 🌷👇

joh.cam.ac.uk/rare-naked-han…

What? !
Wild Orchids UK & Ireland

cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge…

Final day with the Leeds University MSc students, recording NVC quadrats on a rather damp Ilkley Moor. Plenty of species I rarely see, including piles of candy-striped Pink Purslane and a small stand of Cowberry in a new monad.

BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland

A damp afternoon of fieldwork in Middleton Woods nr Ilkley with the Leeds University Conservation MSc students, working on id skills and recording NVC quadrats.

The non-native Large-leaved Wood Avens Geum macrophyllum is doing worryingly well...

BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland wildflowerhour

our 5000th tweet ( #IKnowRight ) sees us in La Brenne, our first full day amongst swarms of Flies & Bees... and Early Spiders too

#Orchids , that is

our group also enjoyed a family of Coypu lazing on a bank, singing Turtle Dove & Nightingales and good local wine for lunch 🍷🥖

Missed #wildflowerhour this week, but here's a late offering of wildflowers from our garden, including a couple of members of the #pinkfamily - Red Campion and Common Mouse-ear.

Names in ALT

BSBI: Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland

After a busy couple of days, I needed a couple of hours in the calm green oasis of Holme Fen NNR - sunlight filtered by Silver Birch, sculptural shapes of Scaly Male-ferns, scurries of Green Tiger-beetles and the ever-present call of a Cuckoo

Great Fen The Wildlife Trust for Beds, Cambs & Northants

Missed all the #aurora action last night?

Another chance to see it tonight anywhere in the UK but it may not be as bright.

Last night we had an extreme 'G5' storm, tonight indications are more like a strong 'G3'. But don't let that put you off having a look 🤩🌌

Just returned from two hours watching the #aurora north of Peterborough - still buzzing! Thanks to Chris Kirby-Lambert and Lizzy for phoning me at midnight!! :)

A bit of a surprise to find a huge colony of Colletes cunicularius on a pulverised fuel ash bank just outside Doncaster yesterday. They really are expanding! Last time I saw it they were still restricted to W coast dunes and a scatter of sites in the S. BWARS Steven Falk