Rhagium mordax

Rhagium mordax today in Bengeo garden. Longhorn beetle season commences here. #Cerambycidae #saproxylic

A kākāpō chick in a bag during a health check. Credit: Sarah Manktelow.

Last week we transferred 4 #kakapo chicks from Whenua Hou to Anchor Island; having moved 5 in March. With a better food supply on Anchor the mothers there can support two chicks per nest better than on Whenua Hou, where the rimu fruit has failed to ripen. 📸 Sarah Manktelow #kakapo2026 #conservation

The youngest #kakapo alive: Awarua-A3, 17 days old today. Despite appearances, she’s doing well. She won’t be leaving the nest until mid-June. It’s a long breeding season! #kakapo2026 #conservation #birds.

Rare Kākāpō, the world’s heaviest parrot and the only one that can’t fly.

They also have a hard time mating. Males are notoriously bad at identifying suitable mates, often attempting to mate with rocks, logs, or even the heads of conservation workers.💙😎💙

A beautiful bee viewed from head-on, but with most of the body visible. The face is festooned in white hairs and the thorax is clad in fox-red hairs on top, merging seamlessly to pure white below. 10/10, no notes.

Perhaps the very finest of British bees is the Orange-tailed Mining Bee, Andrena haemorrhoa, which combines an elegant fox-red thorax trimmed with white with a shining orange-tipped thorax. I was lucky enough to find a calm individual at RSPB The Lodge yesterday who posed for some photos.

A butterfly with reddish wings and large light coloured eye spots in its forewings, and dark eye spots on its hindwings is resting on a dense cluster of white blossom. It's facing upwards, and its antennae are clearly visible. The background is a kind of dreamy blurred range of whites and light grey.

A final post for @rina2012.bsky.social's #ButterflyWeek.
A Peacock (Inachis io) butterfly on Cherry Plum blossom in Oxford's Lye Valley.
#inverts #UKWildlife #photography #ECK
@friendlyevalley.bsky.social @upperthames.bsky.social

A rosette with fleshy bright green leaves which are roughly triangular in shape is emerging from very wet ground with traces of moss, dead reed stems, and some grass.

The first of our insectivorous Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) rosettes have just emerged. Perfectly adapted to life in low nutrient environments, its sticky leaves trap small insects and then digest them. 😊
#OxfordshireFens #CarnivorousPlants @bsbibotany.bsky.social @judywebb.bsky.social

Sometimes a green hairstreak is just my favourite butterfly

Some flea and tick treatments are extraordinarily toxic to wildlife, especially insects and aquatic invertebrates.

White Admiral (Limenitis camilla) also had a poor year in 2025, its 4th worst in 50 years. Its abundance has decreased by 63% at @ukbms.bsky.social sites over that time. @savebutterflies.bsky.social (📷 @iainhleach.bsky.social)

A large yellow butterfly with black markings is perched with its wings open on top of a bramble shoot. It's facing left. To the right and under it a pink bramble flower, and in front of it an apparently dead flower. There are lots of unopened buds . The background is a diffuse dark green.

A Silver-washed Fritillary (Argynnis paphia) for @rina2012.bsky.social's #ButterflyWeek. Can't wait to see these beauties again!
#inverts #UKWildlife #ECK #nature #photography

Woodland carpeted in Bluebells so the ground looks like a sea of purple. The trees aren't fully leaved yet and some have ivy growing around the trunk

Another photo of the sea of Bluebells stretching through the wood. In the distance you can see the light through the trees. This area also has a few smaller shrubs and trees growing under the tall trees.

Our Field Ecologists Billy and Joel are back out in the field this week for the start of the 2026 field season! These Bluebells were taken by Joel near Braishfield. #WildflowerHour #Ecology

Yay, my first Wall of the year, but the big surprise is that it’s a female. They usually come out a bit later to make sure there are plenty of males around to mate quickly. Seen on chalk ridge near Swanage @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social

Close-up of a white flower.

Close-up of a white flower.

Close-up of white flowers in tall grass.

White flowers in tall grass.

Stitchwort admiration post.

#Wildflowers #WildflowerHour

Another splendid display of Cowslips, this time at LRWT Merry’s Meadows reserve This SSSI has a superb range of wildflowers later in the spring including thousands of Green-winged Orchids.
#lrwt
#springwildflowers
@bsbibotany.bsky.social

What a stunning insect!

Here they are (Zygothrica sp) going at it to defend their mushroom kingdom.

El Refugio, Intag, Ecuador

More shocking results on UK Butterfly decline. an amazing dataset covering 50 years gives us a unique insight to the fate of these invaluable indicators

Great habitat creation from Deadwood. The @ark-rewildingnl.bsky.social illustration showcasing the key role in natural processes is available in 12!!!! languages. Not Irish for @irishrainforest.bsky.social specifically.

winkel.ark.eu/sites/defaul...

Problem is you can spend £1 million reintroducing eagles but if the government won’t crack down on shooting, you’re not restoring nature, you’re sending birds to die.

Pleased to find the first couple of Early Purple Orchids Orchis mascula in flower at Aston Rowant NNR chalk grassland @rowantnnr.bsky.social beautiful & apparently used to be so common, but now scarce. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Wood sorrel. #wildflowerhour

New mahogany species found in Zanzibar — but fewer than 30 trees remain Scientists have discovered a new species of mahogany tree but with fewer than 30 individuals remaining, its already endangered.

New mahogany species found in Zanzibar — but fewer than 30 trees remain..

news.mongabay.com/short-articl...

A purple orchid spike with a thick pale stem and fleshy green leaves at the base. The background is a diffuse green.

A close up showing part of the purple flower spike. With some imagination the flowers look a little like a person with purple legs, a white with purple dots tummy, and a purple hood with pale colours inside. There's an out of focus second flower spike to the left, though still in tight bud. The background is a diffuse green.

A cluster of small almost white flowers with pink lines running through the petals. There is a cluster of small unopened pink buds at the top. There are other similar but out of focus flowers in the background.

A few Green-winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio) and Cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis) slowly emerging at @bbowt.bsky.social's Bernwood Meadows, though so far most are only a couple of centimetres high. Hopefully there'll be many more in a week or so!
#WildflowerHour

Calliphorids clearing away the neighbour’s cat poo from our lawn.

Male Scathophagids basking on cow poo ready to mate so the females can lay their eggs while it is still nice and wet.

#WhatsTheUseOfFlies?

No.2 - they clean up!

Piles of poo, dead stuff? The #flies will clean it up for you. You’re welcome!

Cat 💩 on my lawn. Cow 💩 on the South Downs. All being worked on by flies.

If the flies didn’t do this you’d be up to your fetlocks in 💩

#diptera
#flies
#insects
#entomology

A very useful guide to identifying native bluebells, out now!

In the centre a small bright green plant with crinkled leaves has a roughly circular space around it with little else growing. Further away, there is a mass of dark green rush growing up.

Marsh Lousewort (Pedicularis palustris) is a biennial hemi-parasite that weakens reed, sedge and rush. Rare in Oxon and Vulnerable nationally, it's thriving here where we use it as a key part of our #FenRestoration work. Here a young plant is showing the halo effect of reduced growth around it.
🌰🌍

Mezereon, Daphne mezereum and growing among it the rare Rose-moss, Rhodobryum roseum. Millers Dale NR Derbys. March
@bsbibotany.bsky.social
@sorbynathissoc.bsky.social #wildflowerhour

Cionus alauda

One of the weevils associated with Figworts - a 3mm long Cionus alauda found indoors yesterday and probably brought in on our clothes after some gardening. (we have lots of Common Figwort - an excellent plant for wildlife and have found 3 species of Cionus on them).🐘🐘🐘

A male of the spring bumble-bee mimic hoverfly Criorhina ranunculi (Large Bearfly) Found hovering around a rot hole in the base of a tree in an ancient bluebell wood. Mimic of Black-bodied red-tail Bumble bee. #Diptera @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social