Here is the graph showing the full scale of @zackpolanski.bsky.social's impact on the party, using a true-time axis. It shows the absolutely incredible gains the green party have made over the past week or so in membership figures!

My favourite shop in Bexhill.

The fabulous 1935 De La Warr Pavilion; the UKs most important modernist building, designed by Mendelsohn and Chermayeff, is in a terrible state again. I went many times with my architect dad in the 70s. I remember well, it's neglect before. This is a national treasure - it needs more state funding.

Thrift, Yellow-Horned Poppy, Sea Kale and Martello Tower 55 (defence against potential Napolonic invasion) on the vegetated shingle of Norman's Bay, Pevensey Levels. ½ a mile north is the deserted medieval village of North Eye on Hooe (OE ridge) Level; probably on shore line in Middle Ages. Weird.

I am on a delayed train back to Brighton from @rspb.bsky.social Pagham Harbour. The trespassers on the railway was a Mute Swan who wandered on to the railway bridge at Shoreham. The guard told us the it was just being guided off the bridge. Pleased they didn’t run it over.

Caturday. Carmen and Xavier.

An advantages of leading intro to lichens walks at RSPB Pagham Harbour is the humus-stabilised vegetated shingle toward Church Norton Spit has quite a lot of Cladonia foliacea. I always use the Dutch vernacular name in translation Zomersneeuw: Summer Snow. A rarer, mostly coastal, lichen #LichenGBI

On lichen walks at RSPB Pagham Harbour, its always fun to say how lucky the partipants are as they will see FERTILE Diploicia canescens! BLS: "Black apothecia (<1mm diameter) rare except in the south, particularly near the coast". This was on a wooden bench next to harbour. #LichenGBI

I led an introduction to lichens walk at RSPB Pagham Harbour this morning. I always try to show the utility of chemical tests with Flavoparmelia caperata v. soredians. Often my chosen candidate turns out to be caperata not soredians; but this time it did a lovely yellow to red K reaction #lichenGBI.

Whilst doing a volunteer ranger shift at @rspb.bsky.social Pagham Harbour today, I saw an Osprey, sitting on a post, after catching a fish of Sidlesham Quay - in the distance. Thanks to the birder who pointed it out to me. Not a great photo. @selseybirder.bsky.social

A lovely Wall Brown: now not a common sight on the South Downs; but seemed such a common butterflies when I was a child in the 70s. Castle Hill National Nature Reserve, near Brighton, 10 mins bus ride from my house.

Rinodina robaris var robaris. Sorry up-north lichenologists, you are not going to see this much; it is a very down-south UK lichen. Common on wayside and pasture woodland ancient oaks in Sussex. I enjoy seeing it because of its thick-margined wobbly apothecia rims. Parham Park SSSI #lichenGBI

While the Home Office wastes resources arresting people peacefully opposing genocide, the rise of the far right, fuelled by racist agitators and foreign billionaires whipping up hatred in our communities, continues unchecked. When will the govt get their priorities in order?

Lecanora horiza, probably, on the C18 walls of the Parham House walled garden. #LichenGBI

"Business Secretary Peter Kyle said marchers were demonstrating freedom of association and freedom of speech"; freedoms not given to all protesters against genocide in Palestine.

An agglomeration of new-comer Ivy Bees, Colletes hederae, in Folkestone Formation unconsolidated sands (Lower Greensand). The roots of the Pedunculate Oak, Quercus robur, at the top of the bank of sandstone extend over the outcrop down into the unconsolidated sand. Parham Park, West Sussex

Chicken of the Woods, Laetiporus sulphureus, was quite frequent on dead oak - fallen and standing - in Parham Park.

Infertile Opegrapha vermicellifera in a shaded recess of a veteran Quercus robur. Parham Park SSSI #lichenGBI

This photo makes my heart sing. Fallow Deer & Pollarded ancient Oaks in Parham Park; a medieval deer park on Folkestone Sands at the foot of the South Downs: "one of the richest epiphytic lichen floras in SE England" (SSSI). The Normans introduced Fallow Deer; this could be 1125 rather than 2025

1/2 The media gets exited about lichens of temperate rainforest (esp. the Lobarion community) but the southern Ancient Dry Bark Community (Lecanactidetum premneae) is just as interesting. I found the key species, Cresponea (Lecanactis) premnea & Lecanographa lyncea on a ca. 300 yo pollarded oak ...

An opportunistic Elder, Sambucus nigra, growing inside a hollow but still-alive Pedunculate Oak, Quercus robor. Parham Park; ancient deer park. West Sussex

Probably Taleporia tubulosa, Brown Bagworm, a lichen-eating, case-bearin moth lava, munching its way through Diploicia canescens, on an ancient wall in Parham Park, West Sussex

Its always good when you are photographing a lichen (here Pyrrhospora quernea on Fraxinus excelsior in Parham Park, West Susex) and a Red-Legged Shieldbug, Pentatoma rufipes, photobombs your shot. P. rufipes is very common on trees in Sussex

It's Fly agaric, Amanita muscaria, time of the year again. Sussex.

A native Royal Fern, Osmunda regalis, in a ditch of a lowland heath common in Sussex. Native Royal Ferns are very rare in Sussex now. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Marsh Gentian, Gentiana pneumonanthe, "a great rarity" (@bsbibotany.bsky.social Plant Atlas) at a common in Sussex. Thriving because the common is grazed. I visit these beauties every September.

Our cat Carmen is often unaware that she has her mouth closed with her tongue sticking out.

A session at the House Sparrow Hedge Youth Club, Shoreham Beech; well-behaved juvenile Starlings may also attend. #birds

Downland flowers at Levin Down NR @sussexwildlife.bsky.social West Sussex. Kidney Vetch. Anthyllis vulneraria; Round-Headed Rampion, Phyteuma orbiculare & Carline Thistle, Carlina vulgaris. All declined since 1930 @bsbibotany.bsky.social Plant Atlas due to loss of habitat & cessation of grazing.

Ancient woods of Harting Down escarpment. The woodland may predate the neolithic clearance. The drover routes date probably from Mediaeval times; but the boundary pollarded Beech of the routes are much younger (pollarded beech live max. 350yrs.) So management of this woodland has been coniunous.

Yesterday, I walked down a scarp slope footpath at Harting Down SSSI that I hadn't done before. VERY steep. I'm trying to walk through all the scarp-face ancient woodland of the West Sussex South Downs. Marvellous views of ancient beech in beech-ash-yew-hazel-whitebeam woods. Very underappreciated

I LOVE Juniper! It has had a dramatic decline on the South Downs; in just one place in Sussex is it abundant - @sussexwildlife.bsky.social NR Levin Down. It is sculpted by the wind here into giant bonsai shapes. The UK gin industry now imports European juniper berries; its more abundant in Europe

I mostly see Cladonia rangiformis in Sussex on vegetated shingle, yesterday I saw it abundantly on grassland at @sussexwildlife.bsky.social Levin Down. It prefers neutral to basic conditions but oddly it was most common on the chalk heath area with acid topsoil (probably wind-blown glacial loess).

Leeds councillor @mothinali.bsky.social has been elected co-deputy leader of the @greenparty.org.uk. He becomes the only Muslim in a mainstream political party leadership role in England and Wales. Story by Aisha Rimi⬇️ hyphenonline.com/2025/09/02/m...

Mad month with @greenparty.org.uk internal elections. Honoured to have recieved the highest votes for the Policy Develpmnt Comm. Pray i represent all Greens with dignity, kindness and justice. Led by a dream leadership [email protected] @mothinali.bsky.social @rachelmillward.bsky.social

Excellent news. I voted for Mothin!

The built environment (ancient walls) & other human-made environments (hedges, boundary banks) have always been important habitats for Polypody Ferns; but I wasn't expecting to see one (probably P. interjectum) in a crack in the steps of the hideous 70s concrete shopping centre in Horsham yesterday!

1/3. Ashtead Commons, London, SSSI and NNR, has an outstanding collection of ancient pollarded Oaks, as a result of (a) centuries of collecting firewood and grazing by commoners; the commoners pollarded these Oaks time and time again and (b) when pollarding lapsed and grazing stopped,

Chicken-of-the-Woods, Laetiporus sulphureus, on fallen Hornbeam, Godley's Copse nr Rudgwick, West Sussex

Thick-legged Hover Fly, Syritta pipiens, on Hemp Agrimony (aka Raspberries and Cream), Eupatorium cannabinum, Rudgwick, West Sussex #hoverflies

Mosaic on fallen Ash, Fraxinus excelsior; including the lichens Pertusaria hymenea (looking a bit like Thelotrema lepadinum), Arthonia atra, and Graphis scripta s.l. and the liverwort Frullania dilatata. Roman Wood, West Sussex Low Weald ancient woodland.

Midland Hawthorn, Crataegus laevigata (Francis Rose: "which is very much an old woodland species"), with two seeds in its haws. Common Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna, only has one . Roman Wood; ancient woodland in the Low Weald of Sussex. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Pollarded Hornbeams, marking the sides of an ancient trackway through Roman Wood, nr. Rudgwick, West Sussex. Ancient Low Weald woodland

An ancient pollarded Hornbeam, Carpinus betulus, on a boundary bank. Roman Wood, named after Stane Street, which passes past the wood. Ancient Low Weald woodland near Rudgwick. Boundary pollarded Hornbeams are a feature of ancient woods in the Sussex Low Weald. OE "horn" (hard) and OE "beam" (tree)

Small Copper, Lycaena phlaeas, on Fleabane, Pulicaria Dysenterica, nr. Rudgwick, West Sussex. Such a beautiful butterfly. A species that has three broods. @savebutterflies.bsky.social

This Quercus robur at Cissbury Ring West Sussex looks as if it was coppiced. Unusual in Sussex. In its bark grooves grows a free-living Trentepohlia sp. alga, but the tree also has much of the lichen Dendrographa decolorans, which scratches yellow-orange because its photobiont is a Trentepohlia sp.

Already voted for Zak!

Whenever I see a Green or Great Spotted Woodpecker, I always make the Woody the Woodpecker sound. "Ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha". Am I alone in doing this? Green Woodpecker, Picus viridis. Lychpole Hill. South Downs, near Cissbury Ring.

Fruiting bodies, great & small. This ancient Beech, Fagus sylvatica, at Cissbury Ring, West Sussex has the fruiting bodies of Fomes fomentarius, Hoof Fungus (60 cm wide) & the fruiting bodies (apothecia) of the lichen Anisomeridium biforme (0.3 mm) F. fomentarius' fruiting bodies are 20000x bigger

Incedible: Saxon (1050) “Rhenish Helm” tower. St Mary the Virgin, Sompting. The only "Rhenish Helm" tower in the UK. In 1154, it was “given” to the Knights Templar, and when they were suppressed, it was given to the Knights Hospitaller. Behind: social housing & industrial estatrs and the channel.