🎵 We wish you rewetted peatlands… and a Happy New Year! 🎵 This is our 🌿💧peatland twist on the classic Christmas jingle. We send it to all peatland lovers and hope for it to become as true as possible in 2026!🌟

Who should pay when commercial forestry creates conservation problems? New analysis shows 200,000-971,000 ha of UK peatland at risk from conifer invasion. Based on our @iucn-uk-peat.bsky.social poster. #peatlands Link - tinyurl.com/yc3b2s9h Feedback/ comments welcome—not my usual writing style!

2025 has been a busy year for my #peatland photo projects. I’ve built a website to track #PeatColours + The PeatPic Project - including a new interactive map where you can explore photos contributed by the public 🔗 peatcolours.github.io/tracking.html #CitizenScience #CommunityScience #Peatlands

Fantastic news about the UK rejoining Erasmus. I assume this plan is based on the bold assumption that there will be any courses or universities left by 2027 that are not collapsed into financial ruin.

Looking forward to lots of #peatland and #wetland chats at #BES2025 with our thematic session and social. Come and chat to us to find out more about the group and how to get involved!

Not long now until our 15th #NewYearPlantHunt! From 1 - 4 January, let's head out and see how many wild or naturalised plants we can find in bloom. Resources to help us: bsbi.org/take-part/ac... The data we collect will deepen our understanding of how our plants are responding to a changing climate.

We usually showcase the plants, fungi & invertebrates of coal spoil sites - but here’s some of the hidden life too 🐭 Wood Mice sheltering under a metal sheet at Darren Fawr Tip in the Garw Valley. Coal tips: full of surprises, even in winter. #GloiNatur #CoaltoNature #SouthWalesValleys

Please share. Calling all bog lovers and peat aficionados - please drop a thumbs up or comment on this talk, and show TEDx why bogs are the best. My great hope is that we can drum up more bog champions in this world. With love and appreciation. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWt9...

Question for the worldwide peat feed - are people aware of studies for Caesium 137 contamination for your work patch and is that something that anyone feels they need to consider for restoration works? Either as a driver for management or a constraint for what you could do? Thanks!

Visited the Lewis Merthyr coal tip above Trehafod last weekend. Once industrial spoil, it’s now heather, whinberry, lichens & warm bare ground supporting specialist wildlife. Conifers are creeping in, so management is key. Even in winter it’s beautiful 💚 #GloiNatur #CoaltoNature #CoalSpoil

An incredibly proud moment seeing my Sphagnum moss stitch amongst the other fantastic displays from the moss worlds project at the Castlefield Viaduct visitors centre. Huge congrats to the moss worlds team on a fantastic project and great exhibition. If you’re around Manchester - go and see it!

I'm lichen it ... I'm lichen it a lot! These petroglyphs from Shining Cliff Woods are rather beautiful but sadly we don't think they're archaeology 'Concentric boulder lichen' (porpidia/actomelia) might be the answer, but none of the online pix are this spectacular - any lichenologists out there?

Day 4 is Bog-rosemary. With nodding pink bells and bicoloured, Rosemary-esque leaves, it brightens up autumnal raised bogs a treat! It reaches the north of its range in central Scotland, where I spent several Sep days refinding old records of this local rarity from the 1980s and 90s #wildflowerhour

WE GOT FERNS, folks. I hope you like ferns. If you don’t, just listen and you will like ferns. 🌿🌿🌿 Dr. Li is hilarious and charming and you will love him. And ferns. In conclusion: ferns. www.alieward.com/ologies/pter...

First field day in a while this week at probably my favourite peat site of the year at Cwmparc. We managed to find some incredible macrofossils preserved close to the boundary with the underlying clay and bedrock strata. Almost intact Sphagnum plants with entire stem and branch sections! Great fun

Some amazing #peat macro fossils today at Cwmparc when augering with @bootlegbryos.bsky.social . Plenty of sphagnum, occasional bilberry and sedge I think!

Great to welcome Alys Fowler to #BIBConf25 today. She picked up the BSBI/ Wildflower Society Presidents' Award for her book Peatlands, judged the most useful contribution this year to our understanding of British and Irish Botany. Congrats Alys, very welll-deserved!

Voilá! 🎉 #PeatECR (peatecr.com) is excited to announce that the #2026PeatECRCalendar is officially ready! This year’s calendar showcases 12 stunning peatland wild life photographs contributed by peatland researchers.

Want to restore your peatland as an asset for future generations? £10K-£250K grant to develop a plan and/or to action its restoration. Recorded guidance webinar now online youtu.be/eTIOtUStmPY Deadline 14/1/2026. More here: bit.ly/4qbX6bT @natreswales.bsky.social @iucn-uk-peat.bsky.social #farming

Checked out our shiny new website yet? bsbi.org New to @bsbibotany.bsky.social or #WildFlowerID? We think you'll find it easier than ever to access resources, hear about events & learn more about wild plants in your area. Seasoned botanist? All your fave pages are still there + lots of new stuff!

Join us for our AGM on Thursday 20th November! 🦋 Come along to hear about what we've achieved over the last year and what exciting projects we've got coming up. Find out more: champ.ly/EP-UFEs6 📸 Vaughn Matthews

What a day to be on the hill😍 Slightly chilly if you're not in a heated #digger cab though 🥶❄️

The Marsh Award for Ornithology goes to Dr. Rob Thomas! @robthomasbirds.bsky.social has made a huge contribution to ornithology through academic research, teaching & mentorship that’s inspired generations of students. He’s also published a monograph on the Storm-petrels. @marshawards.bsky.social

Looking for a PhD in environmental science? I will soon have an advert out for a project at @liverpooluni.bsky.social with @ukceh.bsky.social & @nationaltrust.org.uk. "Peatland drainage + rewetting across the UK uplands + lowlands" All about GHG emissions and aquatic carbon. Watch this space!

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day? Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

Sure, let's eat and review this Shrek Ass of an apple --

🚨 BREAKING: The former leader of Reform UK in Wales, Nathan Gill, has pleaded guilty to #bribery, admitting he received corrupt payments as a Brexit Party MEP in exchange for making statements in the European Parliament to promote Russia’s interests in #Ukraine.

I am glad to be part of the largest paper on bryophyte genomics. Spearheaded by Shanshan Dong and Yang Liu ( Fairy Lake Botanical Garden) presents: "A comprehensive super-pangenome analysis, incorporating 123 newly sequenced bryophyte nuclear genomes......" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

YFORY! | TOMORROW! Ymunwch â Heneb a Buglife ar-lein am noson o Natur a Threftadaeth. Darlith AM DDIM. Archebwch le yma: heneb.org.uk/cy/event/dar... Join Heneb and Buglife online for an evening of Nature and Heritage. FREE lecture. Book here: heneb.org.uk/event/henebs...

There’s an interesting series of 5 free online paleobotany lectures via the Oxford University Botanic Garden this autumn. You can book all 5 lectures here (scroll down webpage to ‘Get your tickets now’ button) www.obga.ox.ac.uk/event/dr-san... #paleobotany

As I approach old age (30) it’s pretty rare I find myself out for late nights. Zero chance of missing Matt Stewart’s stand up show this week though, he made it all the way from Melbourne to Swansea! Great time, still laughing and a nice distraction from *gestures at the bin fire we call the UK*

🚨📸 About 2 weeks left to send in your best #wildlife in a #peatland shot and publish in the 2026 edition of #PeatCalendar Email to: [email protected] Deadline: 30 September

Only photo I got

The only photo I managed to take today, if you look closely you can even see the rain! Despite the very changeable weather it was nice to be on Castell Nos peatland site again after a year to see how it’s doing. Also nice to be with other bog nerds from the @peatlandcymru.bsky.social NPAP team

Annual report of the small but mighty Initiative for Nature Conservation Cymru (INCC) @inccymru.bsky.social - and yes, as a trustee I am biased ;)

Some very nosey company for NVC surveys today. Personal space doesn’t translate into farm horse apparently

Alongside the hammering rain that seems to have made itself at home over the past couple of weeks, the other challenge I’ve noticed is finding time to post work updates alongside the annual August fieldwork rush. NVC surveys have been enjoyable despite the weather though!

Very atmospheric (c.f. rainy) day out in the Rhondda doing water vole surveys for Lost Peatlands sites at Mynyndd Ton and then Cwmparc. Great to have @inccymru.bsky.social with us as well for the day. Been a while since I’ve been in the Cwm and it’s fantastic, despite the razor sharp tussock sedge

Stunning place for a puncture! I know the Skoda Yeti has its fans and it’s served me pretty well on my peaty and ecology adventures but file this one under ‘how to ruin a car by giving it stupid sized wheels’. I miss my Land Rover every day.

Interested in #wetlands and #peatlands? Want to be part of a growing network to help promote these ecosystems? We are looking for new ECR committee members Email for more information (in link below): www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/peat... @britishecologicalsociety.org

Some interesting bog employment opportunities coming out for those on the peatlands and wetlands feed!

No tickets needed! Just turn up on the night!

I have two weddings of good friends to go to next summer, both of which now pale into insignificance compared to my excitement at getting tickets to see My Chemical Romance in July

Cycling through the Swedish agricultural landscape today. Found a ditch. It illustrates nicely how ditches can be refuges for biodiversity, including wetland species, when wetlands and wildness have vanished from the surrounding fields.

SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR MEMORIES, THEY'RE KILLING THE EARTH, ALSO WE'RE BUILDING NEW AI CENTERS feels absurdly farcical and dystopian while perfectly illustrating Stage 4 End-Stage Capitalism in all its dipshit horror.

Increasingly jealous of there being not one but two giant artworks in peatland restoration sites in Ireland where they’ve made first a curlew, and now a lapwing from the bunds. Time to start a crowdfund to make one in the Rhondda of that one sheep who harasses you for ice cream on top of the Bwlch

Some absolutely stunning views for peat depth surveys today. Now that’s what I call a gorgeous Welsh summer!

Gwna wahaniaeth! Mae hon yn swydd allweddol i gyflawni amcanion Adfer Mawndir Cymru. Byddwch yn dod â'ch sgiliau a'ch arbenigedd i gefnogi'r tîm deinamig a llwyddiannus sy’n anelu at #NaturUwchCarbonIs. bit.ly/45ieGkI £45K-£50K+ Cau 15/9/2025 @natreswales.bsky.social @iucn-uk-peat.bsky.social

Make a difference! This is a key post to achieve the aims of Wales Peatland Action. You’ll bring your skills and expertise to support the dynamic and successful NPAP team aiming for #HighNatureLowCarbon. bit.ly/3H1UbAR £45K-£50K+ Closing 15/9/2025 @natreswales.bsky.social @iucn-uk-peat.bsky.social

Having recently spent time walking over a site - in the rain - while a guy with a stick magnetometer manually checks each point we needed to take a depth measurement at, I’d love it if people could develop this drone based solution at light speed so I don’t have to do it again