#butterfly @bcwarwickshire.bsky.social Common Blue or Brown Argus? Markings don’t quite seem to be right for either.

Hummingbird hawkmoth, Small Copper, Red Admiral and Gatekeeper. Warwickshire garden and field edge #moth #butterfly

Brown Argus in our Warwickshire garden on Bird’s-foot Trefoil

#lichenGBI Caloplaca teicholyta with apothecia. First time I’ve seen it fertile. On calcareous ironstone, Warwickshire, UK. Used video to catch the red reaction on the apothecial section, as it dissolved out rapidly. The soredia gave a faint pinkish reaction to K (not really ‘dull violet’) >

Labour blocks proposal for ‘swift bricks’ in all new homes

So Labour say they won't install swift bricks because they are moving away from specific species mitigations to landscape level ones. But swifts nest IN BUILDINGS. So how is landscape-level compensation supposed to help? Just ecologically illiterate nonsense 🤦‍♀️ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

🌟Call for Papers on #Lichen #symbiosis🌟 Thrilled to be a guest editor for The Lichenologist, together with @veera-t-nogerius.bsky.social, @ioanabrannstrom.bsky.social, and Ellen Cameron. Send us papers on the inner workings of lichens, submission is open till September 2025! tinyurl.com/2w7wwubm

My first post! And my posts are going to be about lichens. Because they are amazing and I love them! This is Dimelaena oreina, moonglow lichen. A tiny sample highly magnified, from Ft Adams, RI

🌿 Rainforest in the UK 😮 At the Chelsea Flower Show @RobStoneman, Director of Landscape Recovery at @TheWildlifeTrusts, is championing from the Rainforest Garden, which won silver-gilt. It is a breathtaking exhibit reminding us that rainforests are not just tropical.#ChelseaFlowerShow

Interesting link to article about different perceptions of lichen interactions with building stone

We have 3 fab #WildFlowerID webinars lined up for you this spring. Led by national experts. All absolutely free! 22 Apr: Mulleins with Mike Crewe 7 May: Mints with Ambroise Baker 10 June: Broomrapes with @christhorogood.bsky.social Details & booking links: bsbipublicity.blogspot.com/2025/03/shar...

I received a heartbreaking email today: A paper in a special issue I’m editing is being retracted because one of its authors is afraid of losing their job and their legal status in the U.S. if they publish a scientific study on evolution. Yes, on evolution, nature's engine of diversity.

#eclipse projection just now onto paper, using binoculars, cardboard and (a lot of) parcel tape. Quite a fiddle to set up. Warwickshire, UK

Busy frogs last night. There was only one clump of #frogspawn at 7 pm. Warwickshire

#Frogspawn in our pond, Warwickshire

wcwd.substack.com/p/its-at-the... - great story, eloquently explained by @graceblakeley.bsky.social Having visited and ‘advised’ on Middlewick it deserves protecting. That means SSSI notification. There is no better legal mechanism to protect wildlife sites.

📣ARTIST OPPORTUNITY Open call for artists to apply to make new work for the exhibition Living Labyrinths: Art and Fungi 🍄 We're looking for work that breaks down boundaries + engages with scientific concepts through a lens of critically engaged art. Deadline 28 Apr. Apply: ramm.uk/artist-oppor...

(🧵) How Elon Musk betrayed America: a thread from a Musk biographer and former federal criminal investigator. Please share widely, here and elsewhere. This will be long. Author bio: www.sethabramson.net/bio Latest book: sethabramson.substack.com/p/proof-of-d...

This is unbelievably and horribly shocking. 280 million acres = 1.13 million square kilometres, which is: 11.5% of the USA 33% of USA's forest cover 64-91% of USA’s national forest + protected public land area (exact figure depending on how much protected public land is also national forest)

Invitation to tender: Saving Scotland’s Rainforest impact reporting. We are looking for an experienced communications specialist to help us tell the story of the impact of the Saving Scotland’s Rainforest project. Apply now! savingscotlandsrainforest.org.uk/jobs/communi...

The happy lichenologist at a community event. Photos courtesy of Tina Knowles Photography

Even happier at finding something new for me in the Community Orchard, Nectriopsis physiicola

State of the usnea 🌿

#lichenGBI Another #lichenicolous fungus This one is supposedly mostly coastal, but was found 25 miles inland, on Xanthoria parietina, on a branch fallen from an Ash. Midsomer Norton, Somerset. Surprising spores with 3 septa in a black apothecium. britishlichensociety.org.uk/sites/defaul...

#lichenGBI Second time I’ve found the #lichenicolous #fungifriends Lichenochora galligena on Physcia adscendens. This time from North Somerset. On a fallen Ash twig in Midsomer Norton.

#lichenGBI #Lichenicolous #fungifriends Illosporium carneum. Noticed and identified by Neil Sanderson while identifying a mature Peltigera didactyla (without soredia) for me. From the track verge to an ex-sand/gravel pit nature reserve in Warwickshire.

Think the first one is a lichen, but not one I’m familiar with. Rather similar to the one on the cover of the 7th edition of Dobson perhaps?

I'm not sure about it but I think the ochre yellow cups in the first pic might be the reproductive part of the lichen with that grenish-gray crust around being the vegetative part.

#lichenGBI Tomentum and soredia on young Peltigera didactyla lobes. Ex sand and gravel pit, by a path, Warwickshire

A bit puzzled by these pustules on the lobe edges of Peltigera ?hymenina, any help please…#lichens

Hoylake’s foreshore, an SAC, holds 2% of the UK’s young sand dunes. Yet, Natural England approved 1.5ha of clearance, endangering globally rare wildlife. I’ve instructed Freeths to challenge this & am raising £1,900 in legal fees. Any support helps! 🌱❤️ gofund.me/2669579c

Peaceful protest is a fundemental democratic right The decision in @libertyhq.bsky.social’s important case will affect all of us & is due any time now. This is why I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with them youtu.be/qk5aiRXRuU0?...

Very weird and fascinating. Not-quite-lichen

We're a new charity and we just bought land to create our first nature reserve. www.bbc.com/news/article...

For anyone interested in rainforest, Scotland, nature, etc, here is a link to a piece that my wife Alison wrote about Scottish temperate rainforest. She wrote it for the Native Woodlands Discussion Group newsletter in 2023. Hope you like it! www.benandalisonaveris.co.uk/general/love...

🌾🌱🌍🌿🍄🌺🌳🐝🧪Botanical University Challenge #BUC2025 Round 1 TODAY 12 Feb. Starts 14:00 GMT. Watch YouTube. Play along with 31 teams. How many answers do you know? Vote best team name! What better way to spend an afternoon? www.youtube.com/@BotanicalUn... @bsbibotany.bsky.social @newphyt.bsky.social

I've written a news story about the worrying slow-down in Natural England designating SSSIs. NE is full of brilliant people, working so hard for nature. But it appears almost impossible at moment for them to designate sites under immediate threat of development. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I forgot to share my lichen sketchbook page - painted from branches gifted by Storm Darragh. The storm was rough but painting the lichens created some calm afterwards. That right angled branch fit perfectly into the page corner - not what I expected from nature but then nothing ever is. #sketchbook

Exciting opportunity to learn how to ID the lichens, mosses and liverworts found in #ScotlandsRainforest with Oliver Moore from @plantlifeuk.bsky.social this April!! More through the link:

When someone sneaks up behind you and yells, “boo”. 😀 Two Scattered Rock Posy #lichens (Rhizoplaca subdisrepens). Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. #fungi #fungifriends #surprise #scared

If you know anyone with botanical skills and a flair for sharing their knowledge, then please point them in the direction of this job. It'd be great to have someone join the team for the next three years to help increase botanical knowledge and raise the profile of botany in Northern Ireland!

The work we carried out was part of a much longer term restoration project. Previously felled and reverted areas are establishing really well. The photo is 11 years post restoration. Fingers crossed the same will apply to the area just completed.

Delighted to see someone who enjoys lichen! Not a mainstream interest of mine, but whenever I post pictures absolutely *nobody* is interested, which is sad, since they're fascinating (& varied) beasts. And if you say squamulose or fruticose people just squint. #lichen #macrophotography #EastCoastKin

There are over 18,000 types of lichen in existence. My personal favourite is ‘village bench lichen’, which devotes its entire existence selflessly to gradually making communal public seating more furry and comfortable.

A tiny #lichen bridal bouquet for a wedding between two mice.

I just completed a questionnaire via @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social to support giving nature a place in the current NHS consultation. There is so much potential for nature connections to play a role in our physical and mental well-being. Add your views at www.wildlifetrusts.org/give-nature-...

The new theme that Nature blocks ‘growth’ marks a lurch backwards of decades. At this time it’s very important to remember that the failing health our life support system will lead to economic disaster. This paper for e.g. says Nature is worth more than GDP. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#lichenGBI Thank you @northernhills.bsky.social. I now think this is Lathagrium (Collema) fuscovirens (not L. auriforme)? Narrowish, branched lobes with small globose isidia. Lobes swell a bit in width, less than double (but lobe cross-sections swell to c 3x thickness). Gloucs. On concrete path.

#invert A rather decorative woodlouse.