A Robin sat on the garden fence beak full with moss then flying fast and low to the Pieris shrub. With a brood having recently fledged from the wall mounted pallet hotel a refurbishment or a new nest may have begun. #firstbirdofmyday

The yellows of Coltsfoot and Dandelion with spots of blue Forget-me-not. Amongst white pappus seedheads

Late afternoon sun and North Yorkshire Pickering sky shared with Colt’s-foot, Dandelion and Forget-me-not earlier in this week. #WildFlowerHour

Pale pink flowered Cuckooflowers amongst the bright yellow rays of Dandelion on a grassy roadside bank against a backdrop of road, cars and limestone buildings

Today’s on the way home from work Cuckooflowers amongst the Dandelions on a Lincolnshire village roadside verge #CabbageFamily #WildFlowerHour

Definitely. Not banking on next Tuesday night being the same!

A mainly orange/red Seven-spot Ladybird perched on a Garlic Mustard leaf.

To be fair I have not seen that many Orange Tip butterflies so far this season but there were plenty of Seven-spot Ladybirds to be seen amongst a favoured Orange Tip caterpillar food plant Garlic Mustard #WildWebsWednesday

The full ensemble of the band James on set at the Nottingham Arena 14 April 26. A raised screen featuring lead singer Tim Booth surrounded by a backdrop of cascading digital daisies. The Daisy logo has been synonymous with the band since the early nineties.

A bonus spot of some indoor Daisies during a not always unexpected nod to botany with #JamesLive2026 at the Nottingham Arena last night.

A fantastic gig, with a brilliant improvised encore showcasing your new and maybe not yet finished evolving song.

A first time find for me of a Saxifrage so hopefully I am correct that this is Opposite-leaved Golden-saxifrage found at the edge of a North Yorkshire woodland path. #WoodlandPlants #WildFlowerHour

Nodding bells of Bluebell amongst the white flowers of Greater Stitchwort at the edge of a woodland area merging with a roadside verge

Bluebell and Greater Stitchwort, two #WoodlandPlants spilling out of the private woodland onto the public roadside verge #WildFlowerHour

Yellow Cowslips carpeting relatively rough grassland fringed by a mixed native species hedge against a backdrop of trees and market town buildings.

Brilliant. Not my garden but I am very fortunate that I am able to manage this urban nature reserve grassland, look forward to and see this and the Hairy-footed Flower Bees amongst them each year.

Pictured is the beautiful Wood Sorrel, Oxalis acetosella. Many of the gorgeous plants to be found in woodland are ancient woodland indicators, as they grow and spread slowly over many years. Why not visit your local patch and see what you can find for #wildflowerhour this Sunday 8-9pm!

What can you find flowering in woodland? That’s the challenge this week from Wildflowerhour! Post your finds using the hashtag #WoodlandPlants for #WildflowerHour this Sunday 8-9pm. Happy flower-hunting!

Since my missed opportunity of seeing a #BeeFly last #WildWebsWednesday I am see them a plenty. Especially on sun warmed yellow starbursts of Lesser Celandine flowers.

Large Ash tree in the foreground high upon a grassy bank overlooking a limestone path disappearing into a frothy white tunnel of Blackthorn hedgerows

The Towering Ash over the Tunnelling Blackthorn #ThickTrunkTuesday

Thanks yes I think you are right. Several metres from the edge of the road and not typical of a dense mat of Scurvygrass I would expect to see. Ovoid fruits found in another picture. Too easily swayed by the 6 stamens and the idea that I had found a pink form of Wavy Bitter-cress!

A solitary in flower Cowslip against a background of urban nature reserve grassland, hedgerow and trees. This picture was posted for last weeks WildflowerHour challenge.

Cowslips carpeting an area of the same urban nature reserve grassland. The first of an annual cycle of Cowslip, Cow Parsley, Oxeye Daisy, Meadow Crane’s-bill and many others in between up until a The late August/early September cut and rake with the help of volunteers.

This weeks #CowslipChallenge was to find last weeks #WildflowerHour “Story Plant” Cowslip amongst the volumes that are now surrounding it

The Robins knowing that I know where their pallet bug hotel nest is but flitting around the garden from flower pots to shrubs to distract me and the other birds around them.

Butterfly Conservation's Butterflies and Moths to see in April: Holly Blue, Emperor moth, Orange-tip, Ruby Tiger, Brimstone, Streamer, Speckled Wood, Purple Thorn, Peacock

April has us all aflutter with more beautiful butterflies and moths to look for in our gardens and green spaces 🌷🦋

What have you seen recently?

Tawny Mining Bee, with its rich brown body hair, seen from above on a sunlit leaf.

Ashy Mining Bee, with 2 silver-grey stripes on its black body, seen from the side in a sunlit leaf.

I saw two of my favourite Spring bees in the Taunton sun today: Tawny Mining Bee (Andrena fulva) and Ashy Mining Bee (Andrena cineraria).
#bugsky

A macro photograph of a fairly large orange furry solitary bee with a black head and legs feeding on a small spring green coloured flower. She is in side profile clinging on to the sides of the flower with her tiny feet.

Finding joy in the small things! A lovely fresh female Tawny Mining bee just emerged and was out foraging in our garden today. The Wood Spurge flowers seemed to be her favourite food! 🧡📷

#MacroMonday #Photography #Nature #TheSmallThings #NativePlants #EastCoastKin

A swathe of roadside edge Danish Scurvygrass on a roadside bend against a backdrop of road surface, farmland and Lincolnshire sky

Danish Scurvygrass is racing along at mostly 60mph on the faster roads in Lincolnshire at the moment. #WildflowerHour

Blue clusters of Grape Hyacinth amongst grasses at the edge of the remnant concrete substrate of a former airfield runway against a heavily clouded blue sky

Grape Hyacinth garden escapees caught in the crosswind on a former Lincolnshire airfield. #WildflowerHour

Twisted algae and lichen covered branches with clustered male purple anther flowers surrounding the black terminal buds of Ash. Some of the anthers have opened up in a feathery coral like form. These anthers have split open and dispensed their pollen. The tree is overhanging the River Slea against a backdrop of farmland and cloud filled Bluesky.

From high above Ash #treeflowers look quite nondescript. I encountered these at eye level from a bridge over the River Slea, Lincolnshire. Tight clusters of purple anthers wrapped around the “burnt” black leaf bud. Turning grey/brown when they split open and disperse their pollen. #WildflowerHour

Farmland soil erosion caught in the crosswind. My draughty old work vehicle made for an atmospheric soundscape on RAF Metheringham a former WW2 Lincolnshire airfield today

Sometimes when we are botanising we can forget to look up! Which would be a shame as #treeflowers are both fascinating & beautiful! This week’s challenge is to go looking for wild & naturalised trees that are blooming. Share your finds for #WildflowerHour this Sunday 8-9pm!

Bright blue flowers of Green Alkanet against a backdrop of a local nature reserve gate rail grassland and trees. There is a discrete blurry image of a Dark-edged Bee-fly on the tip of the upper leaf.

So as it turns out I still haven’t seen a #BeeFly so far this Spring as I completely missed this blurry furry individual clinging on to the Green Alkanet leaf when taking a picture for #WildflowerHour but maybe worth a tenuous entry for #WildWebsWednesday having perhaps filled up with nectar.

Violet Blue flowers of Early Dog Violets amongst their heart shaped leaves sheltering under the waxy leaves of Sarcococca (Christmas Box)

Jostling for your attention. A sunlit patch of Early Dog Violets under the Sarcococca shrub at the very end of my front garden path. #WildflowerHour

“One bank holiday the family went to Chingford Plain for the day. There was a dense mass of holidaymakers like ourselves escaping the dirt and grime of our home streets in East London. We found a solitary Cowslip where no doubt all its companions had been picked. We encamped and my grandmother sat by the flower all day with it covered by a paper bag to prevent anyone else noticing it. We left that evening with that one still intact hoping it would survive at least until the next weekend.” (Richard Mabey Flora Brittanica 1996) Cowslip populations dramatically declined between the 1950s and 80s in some part perhaps due to its overpicking. The Cowslip in the picture above is a present day descendent of those rescued from a local Lincolnshire market town housing development site some thirty years ago.

A solitary flowering Cowslip. The first of this seasons many on a Lincolnshire nature reserve. Once thought to be as abundant and accessible as the Buttercup, a story of a solitary Cowslip collated in Flora Brittanica by Richard Mabey can be found in the Alt Description #StoryPlants #WildflowerHour

A Long-tailed tit nest amongst bramble scrub found in an urban green space this week. A dome of moss, spider web silk and lichen, lined with feathers. The entrance hole is visible, the spider web silk in the construction allows it to expand and contract as the birds enter and exit the nest.

Fantastic nest builders

A pair of Dunnocks flitting about in the badly cut shrubbery to the side of a petrol station forecourt #firstbirdofmyday

Against a background of Willow, Common Dogwood and floodplain on the horizon. An extension of a semi-circular dead hedge constructed with cut branches and stakes arising from coppicing and pollarding on a small green outdoor arts space. This has over recent years replaced a circular living willow sculpture that became unmanageable through natural decay. The open space in the foreground will be left to Creeping Buttercup, Stinging Nettle and Russian Comfrey. 11 March 26

Dead hedging topped up around three sides of an artificial Kingfisher Bank on an urban Local Nature Reserve. The soil filled bank with two nesting chambers within the confines of a gabion wall. The chambers and the bank soil itself have been nested in since its construction in Autumn 2023. Surrounding vegetation including Stinging Nettle and Great Willowherb will grow up around it further limiting access. Two scrapes resulted from the removal of the soil to construct the bank. Frogs spawned in them for the first time last Spring. 15 March 2026

Some gentle ditch clearance using hand tools including a drag, bowsaw, high reach pruning saw and loppers behind a living willow sculpture. This included coppicing willow regrowth within the ditch and removal of some of the offcut timber that had dropped into the ditch during third party tree surgery on a nearby riverside tree. Established deadwood piles will soon be colonised by Common Nettle which limit access to the ditch and sculpture. 11 March 2026

The last few Hawthorn pleachers surrounded by hand cleaved wood chips, laid as a hedge on the boundary of a former sand and gravel pit now urban Millennium Green. A respectable 50 metres laid since an all lady group started work with me on this section in mid November 2025 followed on by other small groups and individuals. Originally a planted hedge turned very tall thin tangled up trees planted twenty years ago. It has mostly been laid using hand tools and myself on a chainsaw on bigger stems where required. The industrial fence behind it recently erected by the new neighbours! 12 March 26

Dead Hedging, Ditching and Hedge Laying. With the valuable help of local volunteers I have been able to complete the last of the Winter works this past week on three urban green spaces before Spring finally sets in.