Keen to notch-up #thewinter10 I checked a small roadside verge today. Very productive - 11 species in flower! Favourite was Shepherd's Purse with it's heart-shaped pods 💚. Also Ivy, Smooth Sow-thistle, Yarrow, Red Clover, Oxeye Daisy, Gorse, Ragwort, Groundsel, Daisy & Petty Spurge. #wildflowerhour

Enjoyed a #wildflowerhour walk in Charminster today. Saw Winter Heliotrope, Ivy-leaved Toadflax, Annual Meadow Grass, Smooth Sowthistle, Primrose and a very tired looking Lesser Celendine with just a single petal surviving Christmas. Also caught up with the Tundra Bean & White-fronted Geese. Lovely!

What a lovely gift I received yesterday - an absolutely gorgeous #fungi poster. Have incorporated it in the collage below alongside a selection of some of the many fungi (and slime moulds) I've enjoyed over the last couple of months in the woodlands and heaths of Dorset. Happy #FungiFriday. 🍄

#wildflowerhour 🫣

A Berry Merry Christmas #wlidflowerhour friends. 🎄 I tried to find 10 berries for this week, but fell short so have cheated with a needle-felted mistletoe! Real berries found were Holly, Wild Privet, Stinking Iris, Blackthorn, Hawthorn, White Bryony, Ivy, Dog Rose, and Cotoneaster. #thewinter10

A wet walk revealed 13 plants in flower, with a spectacular rainbow over roadside Yarrow. Other were Oxeye Daisy, Red Clover, Red Dead-nettle, Ragwort, Shepherds Purse, Petty Spurge, Winter Heliotrope, Annual Mercury, Creeping Buttercup, Hazel catkins, Groundsel & Daisy. #thewinter10 #wildflowerhour

What's more festive than Turkey?! 🎄 A fabulous pillar Turkeytail #fungi for this #fungifriday. Happy Christmas, #fungifriends 🍄

Only 11 more sleeps til Christmas, so here are 11 flowers for #thewinter10, from a local churchyard (and a bonus ladybird). 🎄 White Dead-nettles between gravestones seemed apt. Also loving the catkins (male Hazel flowers), Wild Strawberry and Ivy-leaved Toadflax. Rest in Alt text. #wildflowerhour

Ding Dong Merrily on High(er Hyde Heath)! 🔔🎄🌟 Keeping things festive with a beautiful Bell Heather for this #wildflowerhour.

A Russula rainbow for this #fungifriday! 🍄🌈 A throwback to October and some beautiful Brittlegills found in different woodlands in Dorset. A favourite family of #fungi - I love to see their gorgeous colours, though they often seem to have been nibbled!!!

Well, I've not managed to get out to find any flowers for this week's #Wildflowerhour. However, I've enjoyed indulging myself in the fabulous floral fantasies shared by @mariposanature.bsky.social this week and I simply can't wait to join their Orchids of Rhodes tour in April.

Thrilled to have seen the gorgeous Lesser Crested Tern y'day. Initially chasing rainbows with failed attempts at Turf Lock & Dawlish Warren. However a tumble down a dune & bag of doughnuts later, news of this gem settled off Cockwood Steps emerged, & wow, it gave brilliant views. Totally worth it.

The appeal to buy Giant Hill for conservation is underway but still far from the target. Please support if you can, to help the National Trust buy this vital site for butterflies www.nationaltrust.org.uk/support-us/a...

The autumn colours in Wareham Forest look great, almost glowing in the low rays of the sun - less #fungi now but still some to be found. An improbably delicate Bonnet surviving the frost and standing alone, and an army of Candlesnuff erupting from a stump were my highlights. Happy #fungifriday 🍄

For #wildflowerhour this week a festive offering - Holly. No surprise to find plenty of mature Holly in Wareham Forest absolutely covered in beautiful berries. More surprising to also see numerous Holly trees in flower. The diminutive white blooms providing welcome nectar for tiny visiting insects.

A fabulous, frosty morning in Wareham Forest - perfect for a walk, with the sun just peeping through the trees. Very uplifting and so peaceful. Underfoot the leaves crispy and sparkling with silvery highlights - such a pretty sight.

Just a quick post to say this is the last day of our full Early Bird booking discount on our 2025 week-long tours - offering £150 off the list price if booked before midnight tonight. Full list of tours and remaining availability here on our website: mariposanature.com/calendar

It's Black Friday, but other colours are available! Could anything be more vibrant than these incredible Orange Pore #fungi, also known as Orange Ping-Pong Bats (Favolaschia calocera). Growing on dead wood in Puddletown Forest, Dorset. Happy #fungifriday 🍄

Sharing (maybe) the BEST black thing on this Black Friday....the Boat-tailed Grackle, which I had the pleasure of catching up with in Holbury, New Forest. What a stunning bird - soooo glossy, gorgeous iridescent sheen, very confiding, absolutely full of character and check out his eyes! 😍

#Calwell31 / #IC405 the #FlamingStarNebula in Auriga, imaged from #Oxfordshire UK 19 Nov '25. William Optics 70mm refractor, astro-modded #Canon1100D + #AltairQuadband filter. 185x120sec at ISO3200, total exposure 6hrs 10min #Astrophotography #Nebula

How cheery to find this Oxeye Daisy still defiantly upright, despite the weather this week. A total of 22 sp in flower on my #wildflowerhour walk. Included also Lucerne, Knapweed, Annual Mercury, Gorse, Prickly Oxtongue, Meadow Buttercup, Creeping Thistle, Cinquefoil and Bramble. #thewinter10

Some fluffy #fungi for a chilly day.... Powderpuff Bracket (Postia ptychogaster) looking gorgeous, growing on a conifer stump in Dorset. Happy #fungifriday 🍄

Noticing lots of kerbside plants around my area so took an #urbanplants focussed walk this afternoon for #wildflowerhour and came across Petty Spurge, Daisy, Yarrow, Hogweed, Shepherd's Purse, Annual Meadow Grass, Stinging Nettle, Groundsel, Ragwort and Chickweed along the roadside for #thewinter10.

Having to arrive unfashionably early for #wildflowerhour this week as not around later. 🫣 Very pleased to see my first Winter Heliotrope flowers of the season, such pretty white flowers with a splash of purple, inspired a (failed) attempt to rack up #thewinter10 in pinks and purples - 7 found!

Purbeck Heaths provided a #fungi bonanza! 🍄 Including my first Nail Fungus! Black nail-like stems with white discs and black dots (the tips of perithecia structures with a pore to release spores). Also fantastic fluffy Hare's Foot Inkcap & Devils Fingers with "eggs" to top things off. #fungifriday

Rounding off my #wildflowerhour contribution this week with my final 7 flowers for #thewinter10 are: Wall Barley, Cocksfoot, and Annual Meadow Grass. Plus, Scarlet Pimpernel, Herb Robert, Red Dead-nettle and what I think is Nettle-leaved Goosefoot. And a bonus picture of fantastic Teasel heads.

My second set for #thewinter10 comprise white (and a blue) flowers! Daisy, Bindweed, White Clover, White Dead-nettle, Yarrow, Hogweed, Black Nightshade, Common Mouse-ear, Shepherd's Purse and Common Field Speedwell are my line-up for #wildflowerhour.

Incredibly, on my local walk this week for #wildflowerhour, I notched up 27 species of plant in flower! It's still so mild here, there's plenty of floral delights to enjoy. This collage shows my yellow flowers for #thewinter10 - I particularly loved this glorious Sun Spurge.

What a gorgeous morning on Stoborough Heath, Dorset - made even better by the surprise appearance of a (slightly tatty) Clouded Yellow. A couple of Red Admiral on the wing too. @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social

Such a privilege to see a gorgeous Yellow-browed Warbler and fabulous Firecrest at close quarters. Thank you, @ianweymouth.bsky.social - what a great way to start the day.

Some weird and wonderful Red Cage, or Lattice #Fungi (Clathrus ruber) to share on this #FungiFriday.

Always a treat to see everyone's pictures for #wildflowerhour - very uplifting. My contribution is from Chesil Beach today. Still some gorgeous Thrift in flower there. Even when the pretty pink petals have dropped, the remaining flower is rather beautiful, with a little yellow star in each "cup".

RSPB Ham Wall this week, in torrential rain, provided 11 for #thewinter10. Bush Vetch, White & Red Dead-nettle, Common Chickweed, Bindweed, Nipplewort, Herb Robert, Common Field Speedwell, Hogweed, Comfrey and Shepherd's Purse. A range of colours, but mostly white flowers this walk. #wildflowerhour

Happy Halloween! 🎃🍄 Bit of a cheat for this #fungifriday

My #fungi highlight from Garston Wood today was my first Dog Stinkhorn. What a brilliantly bizarre fungi! Erupting from an eggsack (volva), the long narrow stalk thrusts up presenting an orange tip. This is covered in dark smelly slime (gleba) containing the spores. #wildflowerhour #wildfungihour

Some #fungi from Garston Wood incl Glistening Inkcap, Crested Coral, Clustered Bonnet, Stump Puffball, Yellow Stagshorn, Blushing Bracket, Purple Jellydisc, Hairy Curtain Crust, Yellow Disco, Turkeytail and Candlesnuff. Not grassland fungi for #wildfungihour but lovely nonetheless. #wildflowerhour

I had a fabulous walk around RSPB Garston Wood today, such a lovely tranquil place full of natural beauty. For #wildflowerhour this week, some plants - a gorgeous, rather perky Male Fern frond, plus in flower Common Ragwort, Bush Vetch, Self-heal and Herb Robert (with a fungi friend) #wildfungihour

Welcome to the Neon Womb! Something glowy for #fungifriday - biofluorescence. Here, wavelengths of UV light from my torch are absorbed by the #fungi and re-emitted at a lower visible wavelength, creating this fascinating, otherworldly beauty.

LITTLE BUNTING trapped this morning at East Fleet, nr Weymouth, Dorset. With thanks to Sarah F. for a couple of the photos. Also trapped: 2 Cetti's, 1 Reed Warbler and 1 Dartford.

What an absolutely gorgeous day for a walk along The Fleet, Weymouth today. Really warm and sunny, lovely views, the bubbling calls of Brent Geese and plenty of Speckled Wood butterflies active along the hedgerows, as well as a couple of Red Admiral. Perfect. @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social

Magical! A Dandelion clock illuminated by UV torchlight. #wildflowerhour

An early Halloween #fungi treat! I came across some fabulous Devil's Fingers erupting out of the ground in Purbeck, Dorset yesterday. Less of a treat was my misguided decision to give it a good sniff. An experience not to be repeated! It's alternative name, Octopus Stinkhorn, is very apt.

So many plants to enjoy at the Nothe, Weymouth - seaweed in rockpools and trees in the park, but stand still too long and the squirrels will take advantage! 😂 For #wildflowerhour, flowers of Chicory, Tamarisk and Mayweed add colour. But the Ivy flowers are the stars - abuzz with honeybees and wasps.

As well as being rich in fungi, Higher Hyde Heath offers beautiful flora for #wildflowerhour. Lavish clumps of Heather (Ling), with the deeper-coloured larger flowers of Bell Heather dotted between, and a lovely blue Heath(?) Milkwort. Back in the woods were Tormentil and Wild Strawberry flowers.

It seems to be a great autumn for Fly Algaric - lots of these beauties at DWT Higher Hyde Heath. 🍄 Plenty of other #fungi too, incl Woolly Milkcap, Crested Coral, Bulbous Honey Fungus & Candlesnuff. Speckled Wood on the wing and Red Kite overhead - what a fab morning! @dorsetwildlife.bsky.social

A mid-week walk in Affpuddle Forest was rewarded with lots of fabulous #fungi. An abundance of Fly Algaric, as well as various Brittlegills and Boletes, and some really impressive Turkeytail.

This Sea Aster is still putting on an incredible display at RSPB Lodmoor Reserve. Absolutely gorgeous. Combined with seeing the Glossy Ibis going off to roost with the Great White Egrets, and a Marsh Harrier floating over the reed beds....it doesn't get much better than this!! #wildflowerhour

So happy to have 3 super-smart Black Rustic in the moth trap this morning (Weymouth) - an autumn favourite. 😍 Overall 11 species (23 individuals), included Barred Sallow, Lunar Underwing, Beaded Chestnut and Feathered Ranunculus. #teammoth @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social @dorsetmoths.bsky.social

For #UKFungusDay a few fungi from the splendid DWT Reserve, Kingcombe Meadows - including Lilac Fibrecap and Crested (or White) Coral. @dorsetwildlife.bsky.social #mycology #fungifriends

A plethora of fabulous fungi from Puddletown Forest to bring some colour on a grey day. Lots of gorgeous Bolettes and Russula, but particularly pleased to find tiny Green Elf Cup - often find the green-stained wood but rarely the fruiting bodies. 🍄 #fungifriends #fungifriday #fungusfriday #mycology