Good to see a Tree Bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) in the garden yesterday, a new queen nectaring on Catmint flowers. Bombus hypnorum numbers dropped here in Norwich after the 2022 heat & drought but have gradually recovered. #Bumblebees #Bees

1/2 When I looked at this clip I thought, yep, an adult Common Shrew but the more I looked at how proficient it is at underwater swimming I began to think ? juv. Water Shrew. I have Water Shrews here - but I've only seen the darker adults before. Thoughts? @fionamathews.bsky.social #smallmammals

Custom #Cat #Caturday

Hoverfly, Volucella inanis, on a Wild Carrot flower in our garden yesterday. www.naturespot.org/species/volu... #Diptera #Hoverflies #UKWildlife

Same old shite.

Gatekeeper and snail. Back garden, yesterday. #UKButterflies

How armadillos gather foliage for their nests

Scabious Longhorn, Nemophora metallica, was a new species for our garden yesterday. On a Field Scabious flower. #UKMoths #TeamMoth

Sea Holly #StillFlowering at my local beach Traeth Cymyran #Anglesey today. Covered in Bees, Sulfur Beetles and Painted Lady Butterflies. #Wildflowerhour

Today was the traditional feast of St Uncumber, a folkloric Portugese noblewoman who sprouted a beard to fend off suitors and was crucified by her father. She appears on the c1500 screen at Worstead, Norfolk, a bearded woman on a cross. 1/2 Worstead: www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/worstead/wor...

Today's the feast of St Margaret, 4th Century martyr in the Diocletian persecution. Sitting on the right on a 15th Century bench end at Ufford, Suffolk, she thrusts a cross shaft into a dragon's mouth. St Catherine and her wheel on the left, both were hugely popular in the late medieval period. 1/3

Prickly Sowthistle, White Deadnettle & Ragwort (with Cinnabar moth caterpillars). #StillFlowering at St. Peter's #church, Billingford, Norfolk. #WildFlowerHour

A Wall Brown butterfly, Lasiommata megera, in Foxley churchyard, Norfolk, yesterday. My photos won't win any prizes but the butterfly is unmistakable. Good to see it this far inland. #UKButterflies @norfolkbutterflies.bsky.social

Visited seven #Norfolk #churches on yesterday's bike ride along the Wensum valley. We've been visiting the lovely St. Mary, Bylaugh for 30 years. We were finally able to look inside when a man with a key turned up. www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/bylaugh/byla...

Visited seven #Norfolk #churches on yesterday's bike ride along the Wensum valley. The first four (all unlocked) were: St. Edmund, Taverham St. Peter, Ringland All Saints, Weston Longville St. Margaret, Lyng.

I was asked yesterday what neoliberalism is. This is the answer:

“The privet bush in blossom” Artist: CF Tunnicliffe (What to Look for in Summer, 1960)

Mr & Mrs Mitopus morio. #Arachnids #Opiliones #VC55

Blue Ground Beetle eating a Tree Slug. Once caught it injects digestive juices into the slug turning it into 'slug soup' then sucks up its insides. Dartmoor, Devon. I will be talking about the conservation of this amazing beetle at Coombeshead Farm Devon next weekend keepitwild.uk/if-not-now-w...

it changes color by filling the area with a clear liquid, and since the color is structural and not pigment, the liquid just changes the index of refraction and targets different wavelengths to bounce out! (You can do the same thing with a butterfly wing in alcohol! blue morpho wing will go green!)

Yarrow, Achillea millefolium. #StillFlowering in Norwich. #WildFlowerHour

Acorn ants, Temnothorax curvispinosus, in an old acorn in Illinois. They need an acorn in a particular stage of decay, usually a year old and already hollowed out. If you're looking for acorn ants, you won't find them in the fresh ones.

The potage thief. A man tries to steal food from a cooking pot, but the cook (his wife?) catches him and hits him over the head with a ladle. A late 14th Century corbel at Wisbech St Mary, Cambridgeshire.

#FlowersOnFriday Very happy to catch up with Carline thistles in #SouthCumbria on Wednesday. The dry conditions made them shorter than usual, so this beauty was less than 3inches, gold with burgundy heads about to burst. #Bloomscrolling @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social #vitaminN

An unbelievable sight on the way home from work today. Our local sap weep is bursting with beetles! 🪲🤯🪲 This is a local wounded Siberian elm leaking sap, well-known to longtime followers. Look at this menagerie! More to come…

Common Ragwort & Yarrow are #StillFlowering at the allotment. #WildFlowerHour

Shaggy Bracket update - now two fruitbodies. #Fungi #FungiFriends

Anthidium manicatum, Wool Carder Bee, carrying away enough wool to stuff a mattress. Despite being adjacent to a very hairy Stachys byzantina, it seems to prefer the finer texture of Lychnis coronaria.

Starlings just chilling.

Saw some very different kind of ladybirds in Rhyl on Sunday! 😆 #Ladybirds

Scientists have described 3 new snake mantis species in Australia and Papua New Guinea. These masters of camouflage include K. serpens, K. spinosistyla, and K. rufilinea. A closer look at their unique traits with @mongabay.com: news.mongabay.com/short-articl...

No flies on me. I have some mint by the back door which has just come into flower in the blazing heat. The number of insects that are attracted to the flowers is amazing. I read that flies in particular are attracted by the easily accessible nectar & short corolla tubes of the mint flower. #Insects

Machiel Noordeloos' second Entoloma book can be pre-ordered now: 'Entoloma s.l. 5c/Flora Agaricina Neerlandica vol. 1 suppl. 2. Subgenera Entoloma, Alboleptonia, Omphaliopsis, Claudopus, Pouzarella, section Erophila and remaining clades. By #MycoBookClub candussoeditrice.com/prodotto/ent...

#fabulamurina (mouse story) 508 Silvius musculus fortissimus, simulans se Hercules esse, Cerberum ex Tartaro trahit (Silvius the strongest little mouse, pretending to be Hercules, is dragging Cerberus out of the Underworld). "canicule probe...aut caniculi probi..?" ("Good doggie...or good doggies?")

#fabulamurina (mouse story) 511 Silvius consobrinis occurrit (Silvius meets his cousins). eos internoscit a focalibus (He knows them by their scarves). in manu musculorum Pollex, Index, Impudica, Annularis et Auricularis continet (In the handful of little mice are Thumb, Index, Cheeky, Ring and Ear)

#fabulamurina (mouse story) 515 consobrini queruntur "necesse est mingere! nonne advenimus? nauseo! cur licet Silvio in prora sedere!" (The cousins are complaining "I need a wee! Are we there yet? I feel sick! Why does Silvius get to sit in the front?"). Minimus suspirat (Minimus sighs).

Albert Dumouchel, Canadian (1916-1971), L'horrible chat des neiges (The Abominable Snow Cat), 1969, woodcut, 6/10, sheet: 62.5 x 48.6 cm, image: 54.7 45.7 cm, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Four #Norfolk #churches visited on yesterday's bike ride with @vannabartlett.bsky.social: St Peter and St Paul, Bergh Apton St Mary, Ellingham (locked) St Peter, Carleton St Peter St Mary, Ashby St Mary.

Oat Loose Smut, Ustilago avenae. On flower heads of False Oat Grass (Arrhenatherum elatius) in Ellingham churchyard, Norfolk, yesterday. #Fungi #FungiFriends

What a difference less than a year makes!!! 10 months after restoration for this big formerly scrubbed over #Norfolk farm #pond! & there are 25+ wetland plants in its clear marly waters. It is beautiful!!!

Rest in peace to one of cinema’s most outstanding artists; the legendary actor Sam Neill (1947–2026)

Be the flower you wish to see in the world Schinia gaurae, the clouded crimson moth 🩷

I’ve posted a few fungi recently… but it’s hard not to share more when you come across ones as stunning as this 🍄🍄‍🟫 Seen in the Jarrah forests around Collie. #fungifriends #fungi #wildoz #inaturalist #westernaustralia 🌿

Pittosporobius crassus weevil at light. It may have been in the UK for some time this NZ native has only been found breeding in UK in 2026 If you run a light in areas with Pittosporum look out for this tiny distinctive beetle records to irecord.org.uk or @inaturalistorg thanks. Buckfastleigh, Devon

My copy of 'Fungi of Temperate Europe: Keys to the Basidiomycotes' has arrived and it's nice to see they're still using my photo of Podoscypha multizonata. It's CC BY-SA so you can too! #MycoBookClub #FungiFriends flic.kr/p/LLrHpk

🧵Who Has Walked This Path Before? Who has walked this path before, where worn stones keep their trust? Whose footsteps stirred the shallow ford and vanished into dust? What hopes were carried in their hearts beneath the selfsame sky? What tears were left upon the wind where ash and alder sigh?

Very dry at the moment but Sandy Stiltballs (Battarrea phalloides) don't mind. Some lovely fresh fruitbodies on today's South Norfolk bike ride, including a new site found by @vannabartlett.bsky.social. #Fungi #FungiFriends

Musk Thistle, Carduus nutans. I love thistles and this one is my favourite. Ellingham churchyard, today. #WildFlowerHour

Field Bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis. Ellingham, Norfolk, on today's bike ride with @vannabartlett.bsky.social. #WildFlowerHour

The destination on today's bike ride was the lovely Geldeston Locks pub, where @vannabartlett.bsky.social and I had lunch. The Locks Inn, Geldeston, Norfolk share.google/V6yTUpdSH39I...