A grass snake basking in sunshine at noon.

A nice encounter while walking my butterfly transect today. #ukbms #grasssnake

A table of weekly butterfly counts for each species. The totals for each species after the first 14 weeks of 2026 are : 760   Brimstone 220   Comma 56   Green-veined White 47   Holly Blue 7   Large White 96   Orange Tip 740   Peacock 42   Red Admiral 43   Small Tortoiseshell 77   Small White 16   Small/Green-veined White 83   Speckled Wood

Here's a summary of the Bedfordshire butterfly season so far.

Thanks for all the records. They are mapped in iMap here: www.keithbalmer.com/bedsbutterfl...

Click on a square to see its species list. Choose other mapping options from the drop-down list.

The 25th amendment exists for a reason. This post is the reason.

Can we put Trump, Netanyahu, Putin and Kim on Artemis III? Seeing Earth from lunar orbit may give them some perspective.

This is an actual post. This is not funny. This is beyond desperate. This is a deeply unwell man who doesn’t belong anywhere near the levers of power. Every member of his cabinet and Congress is complicit in not demanding his removal now.

I love seeing your paintings but, forgive me, this one has me a little puzzled - I can't figure-out the bottom-right quarter, which appears a bit rectangular, rather than floral. What am I not seeing please?

If you have any problems with the URL being insecure, don't worry, it's just a redirect to www.keithbalmer.com/bedsbutterfl... which is secure. (I'm not paying for another security certificate just for a redirect!)

...or a consequence of increased recording effort, picking up the season nearer to its start and observing to its very end?

Graphs of flight times, first and last day, and adult abundance for Comma butterfly. The first date is trending earlier and the last date later. Abundance is also rising.

I've added a first-day and last-day phenology graph to each Bedfordshire butterfly species account on www.bedsbutterflies.org.uk with a trend line showing change since 1990. This is Comma's. Global warming effect at the local level...

A Green Tiger Beetle. Green with cream spots, huge eyes and fearsome jaws. Long spikey legs for running fast.

Is there a better way to spend a spring day than lying flat on the ground photographing Green Tiger Beetles?

A stacked photograph of a Green Tiger Beetle racing across the picture resulting in a ghostly monster with lots of legs and antennae!

One of my more successful stacks?!

Text says "Meaning: The people whose alarms ring at night stay here, and, since their alarms do work, they can go."

Sometimes I think the reason that I'm struggling to learn Spanish with Duolingo is because I don't understand the English. Is it just me? Can anyone translate this please?

Reformed meat made from tory offal

The one you posted is real, but a bit out of date. It shows the town hall which was demolished in 2014. Both Google and Copilot said the fake was Bedford. I can't help worrying about the way the world is heading...

The windows on the white building are on the end and on the side simultaneously. The clock 'faces' are an AI joke/halucination I suspect!

A photo of a stone arched bridge over a river with buildings and a church spire in the background

Does anyone recognise where this is please? It isn't Bedford but it looks a bit like it. It is being erroneously used to illustrate Bedford though at www.journey-alerts.com/updates/bedf... . Google and Co-pilot don't seem to know where it is. AI generated perhaps?

Reformed meat is made from offal.

Puzzled, I then read aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/rs_solst... which said the opposite. When I challenged ChatGPT it said "Good catch — and yes, you’re right to question that.
My earlier sentence was backwards, and thank you for calling it out.!"
Yet another hallucination! 2/2

I asked ChatGPT to explain why the latest sunrise date varies with latitude. It said "
Moving north in the Northern Hemisphere:
Latest sunrise occurs later in January
Sunrise times change more slowly day to day
Near the Arctic Circle, the latest sunrise can be weeks later than at mid-latitudes" 1/2

Contact us - National Biodiversity Network All of the NBN Trust team members work remotely, but there are a number of ways you can get in … Continued

@nbntrust.bsky.social your contact page at nbn.org.uk/about-us/who... doesn't include BlueSky...

For Bedfordshire's butterfly records in 2025 (as they currently stand - I'm still acquiring them) only 1.85% were entered into iNaturalist and only 0.33% have a CC0 or CC-BY licence.

How many UK records does iNaturalist gather compared with all of the UK's other record-gathering methods/schemes? And what proportion have a CC0 or CC-BY licence? @nbntrust.bsky.social

Formerly formally?

2026's may be even more exciting

A set of cryptic clues to Bedfordshire Wildlife Trust reserves. 1. A dyslexic inhabitant from The Shire? 2. A Rosaceaen uprising 3. Arthur's knight is missing the Spanish grassland 4. Brief decline by a tit 5. Cautiously plead with black bird 6. Complexion issues? 7. Confused imp shaves one beard 8. Damon cooperates without having eaten first 9. Deranged Andrew hides in ancient burrow 10. Dibbler would include "me-own" in this reserve's name 11. Enthusiast has company at the race 12. Fly in, then leave vehicle at a club 13. Fly to soak up the extra? It sounds like it. 14. Hangs teacher on high ground 15. Look at superb art on gravel pitch 16. Lutra and Sterna are present in name only? 17. Pipes clot somehow 18. Priest's allotment run wild? 19. Punching below the belt(s) 20. Rockets procured covers 21. Turning off water supply from the south-east 22. Use XL foot to reach the top

Would you like to start the New Year with a quiz? Those familiar with Bedfordshire Wildlife Trust BCN nature reserves (@wildlifebcn.org) may like to have a go at solving these cryptic clues to their identities. @brianecambs.bsky.social

A small insect with black and white markings, long legs and piercing mouthparts feeding on Antirrhinum leaves. The abdomen is swollen suggesting a gravid female.

A small insect with black and white markings, long legs and piercing mouthparts feeding on Antirrhinum leaves. The abdomen is swollen suggesting a gravid female.

𝘋𝘪𝘤𝘺𝘱𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘦 are still readily found on my end-of-season 𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘮 on Dec 9th. Despite being only 10 Celsius they are very alert and thus difficult to photograph. (The wind isn't helping either!) Many seem to have swollen abdomens suggesting gravid females?

A Tesco carrier bag folded so that its slogan Reuse Repeat reads as use peat, which we shouldn't.

No, don't!

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Looking for a new challenge working on one of the UK's most ambitious conservation projects?
We are at an exciting phase of our Great Fen vision with habitat creation and peatland rewetting funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Find out more and apply www.wildlifebcn.org/jobs/great-f...

Grid of data of weekly butterfly counts

Did my 24th, and final, walk of the year today. Missed one July walk due to eye surgery. Here's my summary for the Old Warden Tunnel transect.