Frost on trees, in my road. Not meteorological frost but lichen frost: Physconia distorta (Frost Lichen) & P. grisea (Grey Frost Lichen) on Ulmus minor (Field Elm). Common on Brighton's Elms; perhaps was common on U. minor in countryside; but never seen U. minor in Sussex countryside. #lichenGBI

I enjoyed Constable's oil sketches, as much as his paintings, if not more. Path Torawd Stratford St Mary 1816; Hadleigh Castle 1818; The Stour at Sunset 1810. @tate.bsky.social Britain. Turner and Constable.

Birds at Highgate Cemetery. Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Long-Tailed Tit, Eagle! @highgatecemetery.bsky.social

1/2 Very disapointed with @ldnwildlifetrust.bsky.social Walthamstow Wetlands. I visited from Brighton to see Golden Eye. They were in a part where you need a permit to visit. There are only 75 permits per year, allocated by lottery. This is not commensurate with the Trust's aim to "increase people’s

The flooded flood plane of the River Adur at the moated Ewhurst Manner and Shermanbury Place, West Sussex.

The BEST cider in the UK. Silly Moo - from a farm neae COWfold, West Sussex. You can only get it in pubs in the Low Weald villages around Cowfold. I had my half in the C16 Crab (apple) Tree. When I was a youngster there were loads of Sussex cider producers; there are very few now.

Two blobs of the fungicolous myxomycete (a #slimemold #slimemould living on a fungus) Badhamia utricularis, on a dead oak by a ghyll running through Freechase Hill woods, West Sussex, High Weald Ghyll Woodland. One in plasmodium stage; the other fruiting.

Mycenaen arl (ca. 1600–1100 BCE), Late Bronze Age Greek art, has a lot of pigs. This is a fabulously good representation for ca. 4000 years ago. Pigs must have been important to Mycenaen agricultural economy and maybe people had an affective bond with pigs. Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens

In middle & late Byzantine mosaic representations of the Nativiry there is always one cow & one donkey, always with the cow on the left behind the crib, always with only their heads showing. A whole donkey, or two cows etc. would have been less godly. Daphni Monastry, Athens

4 of the Ionic columns of the 6BC Sanctuary of Apollo, destroyed by Goths in 395, were incorporated into the C12 Byzantine Monastry. However, Elgin (best-known for taking the Parthenon Marbles) took 3. They are currently in a storeroom in the British Museum. Brit Aristocrats: the biggest barbarians

On hols in Athens. Went to C11 Daphni Monastry in suburbs. The iconlogical programme of Byzantine churches is the same everywhere. Here, the annuciation to St Anna in garden & St Joachim (Imran in Qu'ran) in wilderness. I wrote my MA dissertation on gardens & wildernesses in Byzantine iconology.

Should you fancy a New Years Day morning bird walk, I am leading one at RSPB Pagham Harbour. Thursday 1 January 2026 - 10:00-13.30. Members £5.00 Non-members £8.00. @rspbengland.bsky.social @sussexornitholo.bsky.social Book at:

The second foliate head listed in the Green Man Gazetteer at Saint Mary de Haura, Shoreham thecompanyofthegreenman.wordpress.com/wp-content/u... was very hard to find. When you look upwards you can only see the foliage; but when you look at an angle you can see the head too - with googly eyes.

Highdown Hill: Bronze Age Settlement, Iron Age Camp, and Saxon burial ground; to the west, there was Roman bath house. Saxon broach from the site in Worthing Museum.

Miller John Olliver built his own tomb 1765 on Highdown Hill, nr Ferring, West Sussex; he died in 1794. It was claimed he became heavily involved with smuggling, and the tomb was a receptacle for storing contraband. It became a tourist attraction in the early C19

Farmer Land Coppice (as Natural England Ancient Woodland map calls it, Highdown Copse on OS map) is a small area of rare dip-slope ancient woodland on the South Downs, north of Ferring. Large Spindle tree, epiphytic Polypody, Soft-Shield & Hart's-Tongue Ferns; all ancient indicator species in south.

Juvenile Jay, Highdown Gardens, Highdown Hill, Ferring, West Sussex. #birds 🪶

Autumn red berries: Butcher's Broom and Spindle; both ancient woodland indicators. Highdown Hill, Ferring, West Sussex

Disgorging Head version of a foliate head in the C12 St Mary de Haura of the ancient "New Shoreham"; founded by William de Braose, 1st Lord of the Rape of Bramber, previously Lord of Briouze, Normandy. Its role as port brought the town great wealth. King John's fleet based there in the early C13

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqH7... The mainstream media have buried this story. Please share.

Urban street trees can be rich substrates for epiphytes but are little recorded. These London Planes outside Tate Britain were covered in the moss Orthotrichum diaphanum and the lichens Hyperphyscia adglutinat and Physcia adscendens. #lichenGBI #bryophytes

Turner Prize does something good.

Lovely 18th century chicken weather vane. V&A metal work gallery. Love it there. If you want to escape the crowds go to the metal work gallery; you'll probably be alone there. Applied art still has low status in rhe hierarchy of art.

V&A. Sunna, Saxon god. ca. 1728 by Michael Rysbrack for Lord Chobham of Stowe for Gothic Temple of Liberty; political propaganda for Whig "ideals". "Saxon" really is an empty concept to signify anything you want. The far right see them as the real English; bizarre as they were germanic migrants!

British ca. 1600 embroidered fabric showing scenes from rural life: hunting, fruit gathering and gardening. Victoria and Albert Museum, yesterday

On Blackheath, London, Greylag Geese are too posh to eat grass with their bills; they use cutlery.

I am very disappointed with the new Sea Devils in The War Between the Land and the Sea. Everyone (over 60) knows that Sea Devils wear string vests had don't have ripped abs. #seadevils #thewarbetweenthelandandthesea #DrWho

The fab monumental Pedunculate Oak, Sweet Chestnut & Oriental Plane trees of Fredville Park. Kent. Medeival deer park then C17 ornamental park. Sweet Chestnut & Oriental Planes the most interesting structurally. Rackham called sweet chestnuts "honorary natives" coz of their ecological importance.

A post from 18 months ago. The very weird Lichenomphalia umbellifera. I have only seen this twice; both on Ardingly Sandrock in High Weald Ghyll Woods; once at Eridge Rocks, once at Lake Wood, Uckfield. @britishlichensociety.org.uk #lichenGBI

Aside from clogging up the economy, the carbon emission from cars are one of the main causes of global heating. My blog www.simelliott.net "Nature in Sussex: nature journeys made by public transport 2020-2024" lists 100s of places in Sussex that you can reach by bus and/or train.

Little on large. A tiny Mycena sp. mushroom growing on a huge ancient Sweet Chestnut. Fredville Park, Nonington, Kent.

Hard to identify this as an ancient Yew, Taxus baccata, at first. It's shape is nothing like the Yews of its native strongholds: chalk scarp-face woodland. It's a pasture woodland Yew, sculpted by nibbling deer. Deer can tolerate Yew. Fredville Park, Kent; similar to the yews in Eridge deer park.

The extraordinary 17th century avenue of Sweet Chestnuts in Fredville Park. Park owned by the Plumptres since 18th century; the Boys between 1485 and C18; and part of the manor of Essewelle in Doomsday Book, from 1066 to 1485. Presumably a Medieval deer park then an ornamental park, nr. Dover, Kent

The literature on Fredville Park, Nonington, Kent, focuses on its Pedunculate Oak & Sweet Chestnuts; and doesn't mention its Oriental Planes, but they are one of the most striking features of its landscape with their unusual habit. Perhaps Oriental Plane is a bit too foreign for Kent!

Hypholoma fasciculare, Ptychostomum capillare, Grimmia pulvinata, and unidentified lichens, on fallen Sweet Chestnut. Fredville Park, Nonington, Kent.

The designer of the human-pig hybrids, created by the Cult of Skaro (a group of four unique Daleks) in the two-part Dr Who story "Daleks in Manhattan" (2007), must have seen this little medieval chap above the South West door of Canterbury Cathedral.

Harmonia axyridis forma spectabilis, melanistic Harlequin Ladybird, on Ganoderma adspersum, Southern Bracket, on Casteana sativa, Sweet Chestnut, in Fredville Park. Recent to Britain. Voracious appetite; eats aphids and native ladybirds which pose a serious threat to all of Britain’s Coccinellidae.

Veteran Yew, Oriental Plane and Pedunculate Oak at Fredville Park, Nonington, Kent. Lovely.

Snowdown Colliery Kent. Miners on strike in 1984-85 were sent food from Brighton T Unions. The strikers knew they were fighting the ruling class who wanted to close the pit. In 2025 a merchant banker has persuaded many working ppl in Kent that their enemy is migrants; but its still the ruling class.

A few foliate heads from Canterbury Cathedral today.

Some of the monumental Pedunculate Oak in Fredville Park, Nonington, Kent. Pedunculate Oak, Quercus robur, is native to all of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. So its common name "English Oak" is not accurate.

As Israel have been allowed to compete in Eurovision 2026, the UK must follow in the footsteps of Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and the Netherlands and boycott the competition. The world's largest live music event cannot be used to whitewash Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Make sure you tune into BBC #Countryfile on Sunday 14th December to catch lichenologist, David Hill talk about the wonderful diversity of lichens that inhabit this pre-historic movement. More information here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... #lichens Photo credit: David Hill

The most ancient Oaks in the UK are mostly in medieval deer parks; see herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/anciento... but some deer parks e.g. Buhsy, Richmond, Studley Royal were also planted with Sweet Chestnut; switching to arable from pasture destroys them.

I'm not sure what's this says about me - but Spotify calculated my listening age as 82!

The Trundle: an Iron Age hillfort, with a chapel dedicated to St Roche, demolished in C16. A windmill, burned down in 1773; a gibbet; and an open-air C18 masonic lodge that included the Duke of Richmond, the Duke of Montagu, and Lord Baltimore. To the south chalk pits, to the west ancient woodland.

There is something triffid-like and sinister about Mullein rosettes in winter. I often forget that I have Poland & Clement 2020 The Vegetative Key to the British Flora. But it's jolly useful in winter. This keys out as Verbascum thapsus, Great Mullein, probably! @bsbibotany.bsky.social

I watched this kestrel attempt to hunt yesterday. The wind gusts (recorded at 50mph) were so strong on the Trundle that no amount of wing & tail feather adjustment allowed it to windhover in a geostationary position. So he/she gave up and sat in a tree until the wind speed had dropped. #birds 🪶

This is the River Lavant in West Dean & East Lavant; one of only 300 chalk streams in the world. It's a winterbourne (a river which only runs when the water table is high enough in winter). It is winter; no water. Despite the high rainfall last month, we had drought conditions for most of this year

There were so many things in the countryside of West Sussex that were hidden to me today by signs, doors, gates and walls: we need a right to roam. @righttoroam.bsky.social