Join us! We are seeking 2 directors to fill vacancies on our Board. We are looking for individuals with expertise in finance, governance, communications/PR or fundraising. An ecology background is desirable. 📅 Application deadline: 12/10/25 💬 Interviews: 20/10/25 🔗 More info: tinyurl.com/pzu6j6yc

🔍 ACT is looking for rope access specialists to manage Rhododendron ponticum control on steep sites near Tayvallich. 🗓️ Tender deadline: 20th October 2025 💰 Estimated value: £200,000 📍 Location: North Knapdale, Argyll Full details on Public Contracts Scotland: buff.ly/zo9T4Ym 📷 Ian Dow/ACT

A recent poem.

Yesterday, the largest far-right protest in UK history marched through London, led by racist Tommy Robinson. Today, we say: They don’t speak for us — and they won’t have the last word. This Wednesday we come together against Trump and for a better future. Do everything to be there.

Just found some good patches of the beautiful moss Ptilium cristacastrensis in a conifer plantation in the lowlands of Angus, eastern Scotland.

Western bryophyte interest in the Scottish central belt: I recently found this population of the oceanic liverwort Frullania teneriffae (in Britain seen mainly in native woods & rocky habitats in the W Highlands & Hebrides) on Norway Maple in a plantation in W Lothian, between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Green screens May Greens be seen on TV screens more and more, to underscore the fact that they have decent ways to reinvent our government

Just written this poem in response to the Chinese military parade attended by Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

📢Help save Coul Links! Once again, this beautiful place is threatened by plans for a golf course which would do irreparable damage to rare habitats and wildlife. 🌱🦆🐦🦋🪰 Join us in sending a message to Scottish Ministers to stand up for nature. Add your voice: action.rspb.org.uk/page/166270/...

A patch of moss won’t last forever. Hence the only finding of Ulota drummondii in West Lothian (found in 2023; seen again in 2025) could be gone in a few years. Then back to nothing. But no! Today I found it at a second site in the county! We can now feel reassured a bit more, and worry a bit less.

We called in to see the Birnam trees (oak and sycamore) in Perthshire yesterday afternoon on our way home, and I was pleased to see the mosses Antitrichia curtipendula and Leucodon sciuroides growing on it. Always good to see these species, and especially on such a magnificent tree as this.

Always keen to photograph bog habitat on relatively steep ground. Just found this example in the Cairngorms. National Vegetation Classification type M19c.

Interesting to see some rather late-flowering Wood Crane's-bill (Geranium sylvaticum) today, in our garden in SE Scotland.

Just took a walk uphill from our house and unexpectedly found a new site for the rare wetland moss Tomentypnum nitens! Growing here in sedge/rush mire in the Lammermuir Hills, SE Scotland.

A nice patch of acid mire with White Sedge (Carex canescens) and Starry Saxifrage (Saxifraga stellaris) growing in a carpet of the rare moss Sphagnum lindbergii. National Vegetation Classification (NVC) community M7. Seen in the Cairngorms, Scotland, last week.

Bright golden patches of the moss Sphagnum auriculatum in a darker grey Anthelia julacea (liverwort) montane flush surrounded by snowbed grassland in the Cairngorms, Scotland, a few days ago. National Vegetation Classification (NVC) communities: flush = M31; snowbed grassland = U7a.

Cleaning our self-catering accommodation before leaving this morning: Down with Dyson. Just couldn't get the thing to work properly. 😡 Hooray for Henry! Did the job fine, as they generally do. 🙂

If only Bluesky was full of left-leaning liberals talking about this threat every day, instead of relentlessly attacking the only party in a realistic position to stop them at the next election.

Prey Lang, #Cambodia’s last major lowland #rainforest, is under threat from illegal logging and new concessions. Home to endangered species and Indigenous Kuy, it needs urgent protection. #SavePreyLang #SayNoTo99HectareELC #សង្គ្រោះព្រៃឡង់ rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/13...

It is easy to mentally skip over the "& Kinross" part of "Perth & Kinross", until you actually find yourself in ... Kinross!

I booked accommodation in Pitlochry for a few nights, for botanical work nearby, and just had an email from the booking website suggesting "top picks" of “things to do on your Pitlochry trip”. They are 22, 91, 100, 148, 188, 212 & 250 kilometres from Pitlochry. Just a bit of local pottering around!

Interesting habitat here in Galloway, SW Scotland.

Concertinas have all sorts of uses!

As we approached, a few hundred metres away, we were wondering what the big dark building was. I said to Alison, just for silliness, "maybe it's just that one big wall!" Unbelievably, that is exactly what it turned out to be! Location: near Stranraer, Galloway, Scotland.

Sign the petition to Keir Starmer: Oppose Trump's war on Iran stoptrump.org.uk/petition-tru...

The Clints of Dromore, Galloway, SW Scotland, this afternoon.

My acrylic painting "Shelter" is one of the pieces currently on display in the 'Hiraeth' exhibition at Foxlowe Arts Centre. The show also features the work of printmaker Karen Wicks and runs until the 9th August. Do take a look if you're in the area. #acrylicpainting #abandonedplaces #staffordshire

Just arrived in Moffat, southern Scotland. The red-brown sandstone building on the right - the Star Hotel - is said to be the thinnest hotel in the world! Thickness: 6 metres. Actually, that doesn't seem amazingly thin. Might there be a thinner one somewhere?

Trump proposes reopening up to 82% of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A) to oil and gas leasing and development Unforgivable one of the last great wilderness in America to become a dirty polluted mining zone www.eenews.net/articles/tru...

Huge sphagnum rubellum hummock with a small pine like tree growing on the top of it. Energy drink for scale. #moss #bryophyte

Possibly the best Spar shop in Britain! Really well stocked and well laid out. Lochcarron, in the western Scottish Highlands.

Pleased to see this Ricasolia amplissima (lichen) with abundant apothecia (fruiting bodies; reddish-brown discs) on an oak trunk near Applecross in the western Scottish Highlands this evening.

It looks a bit like the Giant's Causeway, but made of moss. Sphagnum beothuk found just now in a bog in the western Scottish Highlands.

I was thinking that this seemed a good sort of place for the uncommon lichen Ricasolia amplissima, and just seconds later I looked up and there it was! (Whitish lichen in centre of photos, on sycamore near Applecross in the western Scottish Highlands.)

Interesting to find Globeflower (Trollius europaeus- lower left) growing with Goldilocks Buttercup (Ranunculus auricomus - upper right). In wet grassland in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, today.

*PLEASE HELP* Despite it being the most objected to planning application in Scottish history, the #FlamingoLand/Lomond Banks planning proposal won't go away. Experts say it would be bad for ancient woodland, bad for flooding & bad for many other reasons. But the developer is persistent. 1/3

Labour are backtracking again (!): by blocking a new rule that would make developers put one £35 nest brick in every new home. They think it'll help win them votes - we need to show it would do the opposite. Sign the petition 38d.gs/zcpv

A wee walk around Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland.

No apologies for banging on about the problem of invasive Rhododendron ponticum this #INNSWeek. It's a serious threat to our native flora. Here's how you can help: 1. Talk to your local garden centre about it 2. Inform others &/or share our posts 3. Volunteer to remove it from your community 1/2

The moss Ulota drummondii on Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) in West Lothian, Scotland in December 2023 (L) and today (R). Still about the same size, but part of it has gone. Easy to see how this population (the only one recorded in W Lothian) could disappear in a few years, but new ones could appear too.

Despite the fact Rhododendron ponticum is listed on Schedule 9 of the UK Wildlife & Countryside Act as an invasive non-native species, you can still buy it online & in UK nurseries. Please DO NOT BUY it. Be aware it's often used as a rootstock for other varieties of rhododendron too.🧵 1/3

Most non-native species are harmless, but 10-15% are invasive. Prevention is key to stop their spread. 🌿 Twoleaf watermilfoil can form dense mats that choke waterways, crowd out native species and reduce oxygen availability. ⚠️ Recorded at a few GB sites but not yet established. #INNSweek 🧵🧪 1/

I sometimes find the liverwort Lophocolea bidentata with leaves smaller than usual, but this material is unbelievably small! I found several patches of this miniature form of it on the trunk of a young Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) in Galloway, Scotland, a few days ago. Pencil included to give scale.

Dumfries, Scotland.

An omelette version of Eric Morecambe's "all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order". The cause of this: what was supposed to be a non-stick frying pan turned out not to be. Hence a lot of frantic scraping! Tasted OK though. Location: near Castle Douglas, Galloway, Scotland.

May's Bryophyte of the Month is Daltonia splachnoides www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/bryophyte-of...

Beautiful intricate pattern emerges as burr on an oak stump weathers. Among the amazing old oaks at an ancient tree hotspot in Dalkeith Country Park.

Female Black Redstart just now (14.45 on 27-04-2025) near Garvald, East Lothian. @birdinglothian.bsky.social

"The study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, found the bacteria that can cause LYME DISEASE was almost 2.5 times more common in ticks located in areas where the gamebirds were released." theferret.scot/releasing-ph...

Very good video on a subject that needs so much more publicity and, of course, increased action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.