Nice. I had mine at Lake heath on Friday.

Interesting plant as it's a legume and they are supposed to have high protein pollen so good for bees. Does yours cope with cold weather ok?

Thanks. I can see how natural dynamic landscapes can create all these conditions but we seem to have missing components. I can see a place for some traditional / more artificial management until we can restore more natural processes.

It's hard to know what natural woodland in SE should look like, thanks for those examples though. I would expect there to be some areas of dense shrub given certain species seem to need this. I'm not very birdy but where would these species, like nightingale, fit in?

A lot of my photos from last year look like this, although possibly biased towards more open areas with nice views of ground flora. I will try to get up there this summer for another look.

It does seem to take a long time for woodlands to move on though. Examples of 100 year old canopy such as Monks Wood and the triangle at Hayley Wood still seem to have even age canopy and quite sparse understorey / few gaps. Any examples of woodland moving on to give more natural variation?

Your record is obscured on the bsbi members area database. But you're in good company with people who have recorded it there. I'm in the area tomorrow and hoping to have a look for it.

Well done Tristan. Does that mean you will be submitting a higher resolution record for it?

Good to see chalk grassland flora doing well at Orwell Clinch Pits, S. Cambs, yesterday despite the drought like conditions. Particularly nice to find hawkweed oxtongue and leases calamint (TBC with irecord submission).

Snap, I just noticed them in my garden today

Ukraine destroys Russian drone unit after Kherson infant killed, child 'should never have been a target,' governor says "Dmytro should never have been a target. I thank our soldiers for their just retribution. No occupier who brought death and destruction to our land will escape punishment," Kherson Oblast Governor Ole...

⚡️Ukraine destroys Russian drone unit after Kherson infant killed, child 'should never have been a target,' governor says.

Ukrainian soldiers destroyed a crew of Russian drone operators with FPV drones, those directly involved in the fatal attack on a one-year-old child in Kherson Oblast on July 9.

Nice thread James, they look like cool beetles despite being invasive

Lovely start to the day to scroll through this, I enjoyed the plants and invertebrates as well as the fish. Thank you Nicola.

Pigs in the paddock next door were feeling playful despite the heat

I had a nice stroll round Thriplow Meadows today. Too late for marsh orchids but still some nice things around including meadow vetchling, fen bedstraw, greater birdsfoot trefoil and marbled white on marsh thistle. Plus the site managers came over to say hello.

Many young professional ecologists are extremely committed to learning plant ID. Amongst other reasons getting a good FISC score is an important way to demonstrate competency and be given more responsibility.

It's difficult to know what to make of a statement like that without being there. Recognising a beech from 20m away is different to having chance to look at features close up, you need to see things a lot of times to move from identification to recognition.

In our household they are called the bossy bee as they are so territorial with any other flying insects around lambs ear plants.

Yes there were plenty of these last weekend. When I first went there about 25 years ago I seem to remember seeing oxlips in little cages to protect them but they are doing well at the moment.

From 5am and for the next 12h, a group of Kyiv teenagers were waiting on the site of the russian missile strike which destroyed their friend's home. They hoped he'd be pulled alive out of the rubble. Unfortunately, no miracle happened as their 17yo friend was found dead. This is unbearable.

all the shithole countries

You don’t negotiate with Russian terrorists who fire missiles with cluster ammunition warheads at playgrounds and killing 9 children, as happened in Krivyi Rih. You send those Russian terrorists straight to hell and break their remaining empire into pieces. Period.

Great to see this series. I've started with the beaver episode and impressed by all the work Matt and others have done to make it a reality.

Forgetting brings impunity. russians carpet-bombed Mariupol, blocked civilian evacuations, forced people to seek refuge in the Drama Theater, bombed it too, and then kept shelling the area to make any rescue mission impossible. There can be no normalization with this evil.

Gotcha

Where abouts in the gardens Roger?

Or were seals following the drones around and outwitting humans and AI?

🇺🇦

I have a big ask. My 9yo son is autistic and he’s been raising a betta fish he named Kevin. Yesterday He asked if he could “share a photo of Kevin with the whole world“. I don’t know if this will work, but a dad’s gotta try. Like and share if that’s your thing. Kevin says hi! 🐟👋

@stickybeak.bsky.social good to see you over here. The ecology of an island is a fascinating thing. Surely now is the time to dramatically quit from the other place and start sending your posts this way.