We have a similar problem in NI: not only are new SSSIs not designated, the agency responsible does not have the resources or staff to effectively monitor existing ones and enforce management conditions. Our most important sites are allowed to disappear, particularly vulnerable grasslands.
Unprotected Nature: Natural England failing to designate most important sites for nature...
wildjustice.org.uk/unprotected-...
Beats my ring ouzel shot…
Not a bad churchyard for lichens as well, 72 species including this Myriospora rufescens, a new one for me. I did a NWT workshop there on Thursday.
Anaptychia ciliaris : England : VC25 East Suffolk : TM4077 : March 2026 : On Quercus branch
Anaptychia ciliaris : England : VC25 East Suffolk : TM4077 : March 2026 : On Quercus branch
Anaptychia ciliaris : England : VC25 East Suffolk : TM4077 : March 2026 : On Quercus branch
Stop #lichenGBI press! Hugely excited to find endangered #lichen Anaptychia ciliaris, presumed extinct in Suffolk. Last county record 1985. In freefall in Britain for decades due to air pollution and tree loss. Only current known location in East Anglia, and indeed wider region. On oak near Holton.
Seeing as it’s Friday, here’s a photo of Calogaya pusilla at Mulbarton church. Likes to grow on the surface of flints in a neat rosette.
Thanks for your concern - slight chafing, otherwise tip top!
Elusive but confiding - Bog Beacon tracked down at Broadland Country Park this morning. ✅
Chocolate Tip and Common Spring Jewel (Dyseriocrania subpurpurella) were nice in the trap this morning.
Male Kentish Glory attached to a Silver Birch trunk
Stretched out Kentish Glory
Even their bums look good!
Today got off to a good start with my first Kentish Glory of the year in the garden! #teammoth
Sialis (alderfly) larva has been suggested and looks a pretty good fit…
You know your car grilles!
It was noticed while the car was moving…!
Over the Easter weekend a robin decided that the grille of the company EV was a good place to nest. Now she is sitting on five eggs! Grounded! Luckily we have two other pool cars.
🤣🥴
Amazing and very tasty weevil birthday cake made by my talented colleague Emily. 🙏🎉
A splendid Least Black Arches on an oak trunk in woods at Dersingham today. The caterpillar feeds on various broad-leaved trees.
Mid-Norfolk, not far from the mighty Wensum…
Rue-leaved Saxifrage on the churchyard wall at Wells-next-the-sea. There were also hundreds of Bristly Millipedes on this wall.
Great Silver Water Beetles are an almost regular occurrence in the moth trap in spring here. Assume they are increasing in range nationally.
Cover of "Cup Fungi and Other Ascomycetes of Britain & Europe - an introductory guide" by Geoffrey Kibby.
A page of illustrations from "Cup Fungi and Other Ascomycetes of Britain & Europe - an introductory guide" by Geoffrey Kibby.
Look what arrived today from @summerfieldbooks.com - another exquisitely illustrated book by Geoffrey Kibby.
#MycoBookClub #Fungi #Mycology #Ascomycetes
After-work jaunt up to the coast. Lots of insects flying on the breeze, some of them landed on me as I sat on the shingle: ten-spot ladybird, and a staph which is probably Bledius spectabilis. It has a very cool forward-pointing horn on the pronotum.
Mullein and Great Prominent in the light trap this morning, despite a touch of frost on the grass.
Nice pics - agree with Zoropsis, and the other looks like Steatoda nobilis. 👍
Male Early Mining Bees (Andrena haemorrhoa) quartering the grass. Hairy-footed Flower Bees (Anthophora plumipes) with their high-pitched buzz. Small green metallic Lasioglossum (Lasioglossum morio) excavating in the earth & Yellow-legged Mining Bees (Andrena flavipes) @norfolknats.bsky.social
Dark-edged Beefly and Yellow-legged Mining Bee taking advantage of bright warmish sunshine and exposed banks of soil in the garden. The YLMBs are burrowing, I suspect other Andrenas will too as the spring progresses.
A good search around the dark interior of Foxley Wood today produced a third Norfolk location for Coniocarpon cinnabarinum, and abundant small lobes of Normandina pulchella. And a willow warbler - which is nice.
Good session at Grimston Warren, with the jelly lichen Enchylium tenax abundant on a hillock, Heather Twist Argyrotaenia ljungiana and dung beetle Chilothorax distinctus mooching around.
Shoulder pads are in. Frosted Green to the light trap. Love a green moth. 💚
