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

Just beyond the fast lanes of the A1. Wild Marjoram on the “Colsterworth Bank” A Roadside Nature Reserve on a village slip road managed by Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust #WildflowerHour

Four pinks on Wisley Common: Common centuary, Self-heal, Cross-leaved and bell heathers (the latter really struggling against the ever-threatening bracken) #wildflowerhour

Worth getting up close to Wood Sage, a delightful little flower #wildflowerhour

Tree planting scheme would cover this plot with high density trees, most of which would die (wasted) while competing to rapidly develop dense canopy, quickly losing this flora & insects. Tree planting guidelines are far too dense, driven by natural forestry/timber metrics, not woodland biodiversity.

One of the only "patches" of Bee Orchid on Sheepleas, two flower heads, one in same spot by same bench as last year! #WildflowerHour (both risk-preferring right by a footpath)

Nice patch of Pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys) aka Dutchman's Pipe above Netley Park - the most unusual of three parasitic plants found that day #WildflowerHour

Scented Agrimony on Sheepleas this week, rubbing the leaf gives the game away #WildflowerHour

#TheMount is a thin mile of thoughtfully curated chalk grassland on the edge of Guildford along the north side of the Hog's Back. Peak for #WildflowerHour right now, Quaking Grass and friends

Stubbings House was open for the #NGS today, no great horticultural display (the excellent attached Garden Centre had that!) but a calm wide lawn framed by two veteran Cedar of Lebanon at the front, and in the back was (uncommon for us in Home Counties) Meadow Saxifrage #WildflowerHour

Early Purple Orchid framed by Cow Parsley (I think) and going-over Bluebells, ringing the changes #wildflowerhour

Perfect pairing: one of the Surrey Hills few patches of Early Purple Orchids and just as we found them a lovely accompaniment struck up (watch with sound up!) #wildflowerhour

A roadside verge in Surrey bursting with Green Alkanet, Comfrey and a (maybe) escaped 3-flowered Daffodil, possibly Narcissus 'Sun Disc' #wildflowerhour

If you hold a White Dead Nettle flower up high #HighUpPlants it's just a beauty inside #wildflowerhour