Did u know? This is what happens when you don't raze your garden to the ground in readiness for winter - i.e cutting seed heads off, clearing out plant pots, pruning spent stems & dead branches. If you leave stuff, then winter feeding insects like the Angle Shades moth larva still have food. 🌿🌱🇬🇧🌱🌍🪲🐛

I'm very happy to be a part of this initiative to set up a free seed library that will be hosted permanently in Portlaoise Library (Irish Midlands) from Sat 7th March onwards. Sowing & sharing local grown seed should be accessible to everyone. Inspired by the Cork Zero Waste volunteers ❤️

Favourite lichens and mosses from our weekend trip to Killarney. I wouldn't know their names but appreciate those beautiful textures and the miniature worlds they support.

One of the many benefits of Alder #trees Alder goblet #fungi grow on the old rotting catkins. They are tiny as you can see compared to the moss sporophytes. A similar fungi grows from the rotting cones.

Fantastic day at the #IrishSeedSavers seedswop in co. Clare today. I'm so impressed at the amount of conservation work they do for heritage vegetables, grains and fruits. Quality is top notch! (I get great germination rates compared to shop bought ❤️). #OpenPollinated #HeirloomSeeds

"Overall, constructed dune wetlands support diverse but compositionally distinct, early-successional plant species assemblages. Rather than replacing natural systems, they complement them at the landscape scale. " The effect was seen even with conservation grazing in just under 80 dune wetlands.

Loving Botany lllustrated science colouring book. Introduces not just flowering plants but tissues, fossils, mosses lichens etc. Great fun way to understand plant families and learn plant anatomy visually. #ScientificIllustration #Booksky

Started wildlife gardening 12 years ago when we dug out the lawn in our urban garden and watched what showed up. Tillage weed guides started me on a journey into conservation topics like disturbance, plant reproductive strategies & insect population balance. Welcome Emily! 🪲 #FormerlyKnownAsWeeds

It was believed in medieval times that hedgehogs had spikes so they could roll over fruit to carry home to their children, which is not true but is a really cute idea

The Bluesky moth-fancier pipeline. No one talks about the dangers of repeated exposure to cool moth pics 😂. Also: wholesome thread alert.

The amazing Tom Lord describing the community of bears, wolves and lynx that used to occur on Giggleswick Crags in the Yorkshire Dales. youtu.be/4Wg8Qu57-8Q?...

Thankful to have such a clear breakdown on genes. Life is truly fascinating!

My undergraduate dissertation in the 1990s was based on mapping some 500 bird territories in woodland and shrubland. The premise being vegetation structure not plant species determining some bird communities.

#Rewildlife video not just speaking to the incredible value of well-managed floodplains but demonstrating it with footage of all the wonderful wetland birds who benefit along with us when we let the land sponge up winter floods. (I believe it's co Wicklow?) #IrishWildlife #MakeRiversBendyAgain

#Ghostponds spreading to Northern Ireland: Source: BBC search.app/W9dJv

'Horse in the Gorse' by #HenHarrierProject. Managing native Gorse when it starts to dominate in the context of Ireland. Vid Highlights: - Practical #ConservationGrazing for biodiversity - Fire & seed activation/plant recovery - Cattle vs Horses vs Goats - Stocking rates & timing - Value of Gorse

Welcome back to #FossilFriday Here is quite a large solitary rugose (horn) coral belonging to the taxa Grewingkia canadensis. This specimen was collected from the Upper Ordovician Whitewater (upper cincinnatian series) Formation in Indiana.

Bit of happy local news to me and only 10 minutes from my door. I'm now wondering if any of the kestrels hunting my back fields in the summer might have been rescued by Richard? He's an avid moth person too and great to chat with. www.laois-nationalist.ie/news/laois-m...

Many Norfolk farm #ponds have steep sides especially at the old clay/marl pit digging face. Sometimes, if cleared of scrub, a stunning vertical meadow is formed along the sharp moisture gradient from waters edge to bank top. Here Sayer's Black Pit, the first pond we restored in 2011, shows the way

If Denmark can get farmers to agree to dropping their nitrates derogation, adopting a carbon tax on meat, government promotion of plant-based diets and rewilding a fifth of the country - why can't Ireland? www.irishtimes.com/science/2026...

My ID app is saying this is a Purple Emperor Chrysalis but that is highly unlikely in Ireland. If anyone can suggest lookalikes or online resources to look through I'd be very grateful! #WhatIsThisBug #Bugsky

Our Native Meadow Cubes! Love that we have brought a small piece of nature right into the heart of the city and that it resonates with people. 💚

Interesting part of the puzzle "areas closer to water points experienced the highest levels of tree cover reduction due to concentrated elephant activity. This selective browsing and trampling created zones of intensified openness, with tree cover gradually increasing further from water points."

Met a brilliant tree man in Laois today to pickup some native seed grown Alders today. He had some fantastic junipers too that were sadly not great for my site. Drop me a message if interested in native provenance junipers and I can forward his number. Real labour of love!

Ordered both because I LOVE a large format book and John Feehan is a treasure trove of knowledge. Also found a #Dragonfly model for a tenner in @thebookshopie.bsky.social site that looks like it's going to be so much fun to build!

#BigMeadowSearch Guides to Grassland Indicator Plants & Associated Species arrived today. Plants, galls, inverts, fungi! What a credit to brilliant people running and contributing to the project. Special tx to Laura Moss! @bigmeadowsearch.bsky.social #GrasslandEcology #Meadows

I have a print out of some meadow management tips from @agrimonyspikes.bsky.social on my bedroom wall. Hard graft combined with smart care has some really special results. Threads like this make my day!

Honestly. Let's connect if you have something to share about best practice non-conform building, there must be something out there.

#AgrarianFutures: Interview with Paul Greenberg, eating fish in the age of limits. Includes: - Our history with #WildFishing & fish farming. - Ecosystem collapse - Highlights on food production & regenerative principles regarding ocean and waterway health. #MarineEcology #SustainableFood 🧵 1/2

To get 2026 off to a good start, here is a little botanical quiz: 8 leaf photos to see if you can identify the species. Answers to follow later

Caught my second glimpse of snipes (Redlisted in Ireland) on our land in co Laois today. I doubt I would have been fast enough to catch them on camera but have a quick blurb from the #CommunityWetlandForum beginners guide to wetlands #IrishWildlife #BirdsIreland

I've been pacing my way through this as it's packed with so much great information! I'll never look at a scrape or a ditch the same again either. Sections on historic pond communities caught my interest. Lots of tables for people like me who need to scan back over text often before it all connects

I’ve just released deets for a new wetland ID course, with a special emphasis on lowland fens! 😍🌱 Find out more here: britishbotany.co.uk/products/rea...

I visited Sabi sands approx 20 years ago as a newly adult person and the place and people running it were fantastic. Love seeing one of my favourite African birds (see paradise flycatcher for comparison) on a day when I'm thinking of family near and far.

Wishing ye all a most peaceful and magical Christmas 🎄 ✨️ thanks to each and every one of ye for all of the likes and lovely comments throughout the year. With love and gratitude ❤️ a little Reindeer lichen tree for ye all nestled in the bog carpet ✨️

Back in the graveyard before Christmas, another mini-mushroom, Moss Navel (Arrhenia rickenii), hiding amongst the moss on a tombstone. If you don't seek, you don't find. #fungifriends #fungi #mycology

My 5 year old took me on a tour and I made the mistake of mentioning where the wet part was. Guess where she wanted to go? Happy to see these water levels in the winter. Also can see why the birds are constantly flitting through the stands of dock with all the spiders & bugs Co Laois Ireland

"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!

Ruby-tailed Wasp (Chrysura sp) - North Antrim. Great to see a few of these stunners over the summer including at a new site close to home. (Library images) #rubytailedwasp #chrysura #macrophotography #macro #insects #gcampbellphoto @ulsterwildlife.bsky.social

The nature vs man conversation is so tiresome when we literally need healthy ecosystems for our survival. Recognised the BEC company logo on the IVC plant community breakdowns this past week. Glad to see people doing good work resetting the balance with such valuable baselines. 👍

Are you interested in learning more about identifying plant pathogens in the wild? Come along to my webinar at 7pm on the 27th of January! bsbi.org/take-part/ev... #FungiFriends #WildPlantDisease

Earth's largest land animals are limited by salt. Sodium availability constrains the density and distribution of elephants, giraffes and rhinos across Africa, and offers a new explanation for the so-called 'missing megaherbivores'. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Free access: rdcu.be/eTPY2

"Between 2017 and 2023, all additional wind energy generation in Ireland was absorbed by data centres. As data centre demand has expanded at the same rate as renewables generation, renewables are not delivering net reductions in fossil fuel use in power generation." #ResearchIreland #AIBubble

How does global warming cause colder winter storms? whowhatwhy.org/2019/11/23/t...

1. Some good news at last. This week’s column is about the amazing thing a couple of us stumbled into three years ago, which we’ve now developed into a global research programme. It doesn’t change everything, of course, but it could help change quite a lot. + 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Plants with the context of associated species? Yes please! Hope you deliver to Ireland!

Winter is THE best time for spotting evergreen ferns, clubmosses etc. Don't stop botanising just because plants are no longer in flower. Unless there is snow-cover you can still collect useful records even in a place previously well-recorded by excellent botanists!!

Mobile Omelet chicken hutch ordered! They'll spend the summer clearing grass and thinning dock for the next year's new wildlife hedges before setting up shop next to the house for a chicken composting area. 5 big fat hens is something well worth looking forward to in 2026.

I thought this post was a once off witty caption until I dug deeper. Each little critter posted by @mothfluencer.bsky.social lives a rich and vastly more interesting life than mine 😂 #TimelineCleanse

Great photos and fascinating info on this thread 🧵