Primrose, probably another hybrid, cheering up a Surrey ditch #wildflowerhour

Thanks to a small outcrop of chalk, at the end of a long loop of the Greensand up to Leith Hill, the near total lack of flowers compensated by a great hedge of Winter Heliotrope #GeologyMatters #WildFlowerHour

Lucky to catch a pair of Barn Owls hunting together at the furthest point of the Blakeney/Cley sea wall late yesterday #UKBirding (best camera was smartphone I had with me)

Perfectly, large patch of Sweet Violet (Viola Odorata) in #SurreyHills this week #WildFlowerHour

A well-known area of Norbury Park in Surrey has a youngish Beech plantation known for its curated native Primroses. None at all showing except for a small patch of fully-out Eliator Hybrids. But are they guerilla-planted impostors or "real" False Oxlip impostors? #WildFlowerHour #WildFlowerID

Our rescue snowdrops from the M25J10 improvement scheme are doing OK, but I feel the more specialist ones we have acquired over time struggle to ever open in the wet weather has the often large petals get drenched and are then too heavy to lift up and just rot ☹️ #WildfowerHour

Lots of crocuses around our poor Surrey soils, this one from "old Surrey", a Richmond cemetery for #WildflowerHour ... Has a somewhat Spencer'esque "Resurrection at Cookham" feel to it?

Only real bit of colour was the Gorse (again!) though matched by this Witches' Butter/Yellow Brain Fungus (Tremella mesenterica) parasitising crust fungus and sometimes grows on decaying Gorse wood, as here, especially in wet winter weather, as now! #WildflowerHour

Apart from the odd but welcome banks of Snowdrops still enjoying seedheads (Teasel and Old Man's Beard/Clematis Vitalba) #wildflowerhour

Only noteworthy bloom last week as ice and snow gripped our area was the crystals on a sloping former window. I think due to some rain and frost cycles #wildflowerhour

Always the Gorse, whatever the weather, the only #WildflowerHour in the frozen garden. The rest are the winter colour (and smells) cultivars: Viburnum x bodnantense, Daphne bholua, Winter Jasmine, Iris and Japanese Quince.

Had hope for Juniper Top and Mickleham Down for #NYPlantHunt but all too Alpine at the moment #WildflowerHour

Far too late for #WildflowerHour but ... Was looking in the Blackthorn for Brown Hairstreak butterfly eggs and found one starting to bloom and then the elusive egg

Best hedgerows are rich in birds and their food: Rosehips, Wild Privet, Stinking Iris, abundant Blackthorn sloes #wildflowerhour

How much Lichen?

The brave flowers of our early November warmth sadly wilting in the frosts of late November #WildflowerHour

#Winter10 included an unusual (for Surrey) Centaury (Centaurium littorale) on newly accessible short-cropped sandy grassland, Holly, Autumn Hawkbit, Common Stork's-bill, Rhododendron(!), Pink and White Yarrow, Clustered Bellflower, an ocean of Periwinkle, Meadowsweet #wildflowerhour

Very surprised to see these (admittedly planted a few years ago now) beauties pop up in the garden late this afternoon, Snowdrops in early November?!?! Galanthus elwesii I think. #wildflowerhour

Always nice to have the Holly berries put to good use as the first Redwing return to the UK and our garden (how do they find it each year?) ... with a bonus Blackcap lurking. #wildflowerhour

Why are thistles so difficult? #wildflowerhour #wildflowerID this tall scraggly one, in a somewhat damp area, with a lovely flowerhead may be a Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre)

All the pinky purples for #WildFlowerHour from Denbies Hillside today: Clustered Bellflower, Knapweed,Self Heal, Marjoram, Scabious and Harebell

South Downs Way had plenty of colour: always astonishing Chicory blue, White Campion, Burnet Rose, Field Sowthistle and Greater Knapweed #wildflowerhour

Parked in a Steyning municipal car park today, under a deliberately planted pear tree with abundant small round fruits. Can't be a Plymouth Pear (Pyrus Cordata) surely? Brought some "samples" home for later tasting. #wildflowerhour #wildflowerid

Keep seeing #Caterpillars #Moths on paths. Why so much moving about in the open at the moment? Or just lucky spotting them? Two intriguing beauties: Fox Moth and Pale Tussock #WildWebsWednesday

Orchid seed heads in abundance on Mickleham Down escarpments, Birdsnest and Broad-leaved Helleborine #wildflowerhour

Clustered Bellflower, now in a range of colours #wildflowerhour

It's not exactly a bloom but blooming gorgeous, invasive escapee on a local river bank, but incredible too, Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) #wildflowerhour

Nice find on edge of a paddock near Guildford was some Field Bugloss (Anchusa arvensis) #WildflowerHour

Super bloom of Persicaria maculosa in the base of a currently dried-up pond #wildflowerhour

Chilterns walk from Bledlow revealed the superb material for #wildflowerhour especially on Lodge Hill, awash with huge clumps of #Eyebright #Scabious and views!

Autumn #Gentians only just got going at Yoesden in the Chilterns earlier last week #wildflowerhour

Nine Nightshade family members from #Cambridge and #Suffolk: Woody, Black, Green, Small, Deadly & Tall Nightshades, …plus Thorn Apple, Henbane & Duke of Argyll's Tea Plant. Scientific names in ALT. #WildflowerHour #Fruits

Ok, I know it's not native and is at Kew Gardens, but the rose hips on these Rosa Roxburghii, are as big as chestnuts, one of their common names #wildflowerhour

Everlasting-pea are stunning in close-up, late-flowering on the Surrey chalk, and fade so well too #wildflowerhour

Got to be Guelder-rose #fruits as a companies by such gorgeously rusty leaves #wildflowerhour

Common Centaury just managing to pop up on the oh-so-parched paddocks across the ever more obviously sandy Surrey Hills. #wildflowerhour #gentianfamily

WTE G463 chasing an Osprey with fish in very murky weather over the Harbour. The Osprey dropped the fish which was caught in mid air by the one footed WTE! @harbourbirds.bsky.social @dorsetbirdclub.bsky.social @dorsetwildlife.bsky.social

Teasels, Thistle and Burdocks #WildflowerHour #PollinatorPals (Essex Skipper, Red Admiral, Silver Washed Fritillary, Holly Blue, Brimstone and Comma)

The naturalised Devil's Trumpet (Datura Stramonium) looking better after the brief spell of wet weather, much more like it's more tender Daturae cousin Brugmansia (aka Angel's Trumpet), and just as poisonous #wildflowerhour

You can cut the banks but the ditch still flows with Purple Loosestrife (down to the River Wey) #wildflowerhour

Slightly worrying sprawl of an invasive, non-native, sort of Meadowsweet lookalike at Thursley: False spiraea (Sorbaria sorbifolia) #wildflowerhour

Bees and butterflies love Burdock (and Teasel) - amazing scenes along the re-natured A3 at the Devil's Punchbowl, Hindhead #wildflowerhour

Walking a Hampshire Hanger with dying, decaying Ash we heard a creak followed by sharp cracks. A tall old Ash was giving up, crashing down the escarpment. A death knell echoing. Now wary but also alert to new life in fresh glades, huge sprawls of Traveller's Joy (Clematis vitalba). #wildflowerhour

Scabious, common and small on Noar Hill #wildflowerhour

Two nettles and one impostor: field mint and hemp-nettle plus nettle-leaved bellflower #wildflowerhour #lamiaceae up and around the incredibly well-curated and thus floriferous Noar Hill nature reserve

#wildflowerhour #lamiaceae there was some nettle there somewhere ... Or have the peacock butterfly larvae eaten it all?

Missed #wildflowerhour as walking back along the Exe below Exeter where the evening views across the flood relief scheme are (sort of) lovely, sky is natural but the pink haze below in the very wide new ditch is acres and acres of Himalayan Balsam

Butterfly highlight of #ElmbridgeNaturalHistorySociety walk around #BrooklandsCommunityPark @elmbridgebc.bsky.social were the Purple Hairstreak on the oaks - the area of thriving (even if gone over commercial) S Marsh Orchid x CSO also fascinating

Several horrible Devil's trumpet (Datura stramonium) plants have popped up on recently disturbed, fairly neglected, land after Cherry Laurel clearance, seeds can lie dormant for years apparently - may have originally spread in imported birdseed. #wildflowerhour