Falmouth Nature & Pollinator Perfect

Baffled by blackthorn We often learn best from our mistakes, and I thought I’d pass on a little learning from a mistake I made recently. The unseasonably warm weather brought out Spring in a rush, and I photographed thi…

Spring has sprung & buds are beginning to burst into #blossom. At least they are here in Cornwall

A good time to remind myself of the differences between Blackthorn & Cherry Plum...explained beautifully in this great blog post by @badbotanist.bsky.social 🌿

badbotanist.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/b...

Book cover of Urban Plants by Trevor Dines

I'm made happy by all the excellent, slightly abstruse words in Urban Plants by @trevorthebotanist.bsky.social. Here's one: endozoochory (seed dispersal in animal poop). But my favourite so far is BATOLOGIST: one who studies BRAMBLES. Thanks, Trevor, for brightening this rainy day 😊
#urbanplants

Researchers from the University of Exeter have found that moths move 85% less on average under street lighting conditions than in natural nighttime conditions.

How do busy bees avoid overheating from flying? New measurements could help predict pollinators’ ability to withstand climate change

Bumblebees are among the hot rods of the insect world and able to fly 22 kilometers per hour. Even while hovering, their powerful wing muscles generate a lot of heat. Like any high-performance vehicle, the bees have ways to keep their motors cool.

#bumblebees

www.science.org/content/arti...

Happy birthday to Charles Darwin,
patron saint of tired scientists, grumpy fieldworkers, and hating your own manuscript.

The migrant highlight of the year in St Mellion was actually a butterfly: American Painted Lady (Vanessa virginiensis) on 24/8, the 2nd record for East Cornwall.

I found the first Clouded Yellow caterpillars of 2026 today on the transect.
Only 2 seen, but clear evidence that they continue to overwinter at Southbourne despite what the British winter weather is throwing at them.

Southbourne
Dorset

Bee-hunting beetles are the first animals known to fake the smell of flowers Study of parasitic blister beetles reveals a new form of chemical deception

European black oil beetles (Meloe proscarabaeus) and their cunning plan.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Great new research shows that light pollution prevents activity in the critical twilight period (just after sunset) in a moth and spider species. 🕷️🦋💡- this calls for mitigations targeting this critical time period. Read more in our dispatch:
www.cell.com/current-biol...

Yellow and white wildflowers blooming on a grassland site

40 grassland sites across St Albans district have been seeded with wildflowers and mowed only once in late summer as part of the Wilder St Albans project.

The results? Sightings of butterflies during site visits were up by an average of 80% on 2024 and 350% on 2022. 🦋

Shortest day of the year, also damp, grey and cool, but it didnt stop the bumblebees feeding in a public garden in Totnes. @bumblebeetrust.bsky.social

Penryn Town Council delays decision about using toxic weedkiller Penryn Town Council votes to delay appointing a contractor to kill weeds using glyphosate.

There are so many concerns over the use of glyphosate herbicide to human health and wildlife that hopefully Penryn Council will abandon its use. Mylor and Flushing Parish Council have found alternatives to its use as have other councils.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

#cornwall #glyphosate

New study confirms that short wavelength light (UV & blue) attracts the most nocturnal insects & that intensity increases attraction for all colours. Longer wavelength & lower intensity outdoor lights should reduce biodiversity impacts resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #teammoth 🌍

Resource supplementation later in the colony cycle improves real‐world bumblebee colony survival Our findings suggest that B. terrestris colonies became food-limited towards the end of their colony cycle in early summer. We suggest ecological intensification through planting native wildflower sp....

I am absolutely thrilled to share my first chapter, published today in @jappliedecology.bsky.social! Results are summarised in the thread below, or you can read it OA here doi.org/10.1111/1365... @ellileadbeater.bsky.social @rhulbiology.bsky.social @uclcber.bsky.social @ucl-pnl.bsky.social 1/7 🧪

Housing secretary tells Labour MPs to vote down planning bill amendment Amendment restricts protection for animals to allow faster house building

Watching Labour MPs take a wrecking ball to nature makes me so angry & so sad. Their action tonight voting down amendments to the #PlanningBill intended to protect wildlife & habitats from destruction is so reckless & so counterproductive. People didn’t vote Labour for this 👇

Mahonia attracting queen buff-tailed bumblebee yesterday in Totnes, south Devon. @bumblebees

a wasp with silver head and thorax, red legs and abdomen, grasps onto a dead twig with her mandibles while she sleeps at night in a desert shrub

her highness sleeps

Ammophila wasp on brittlebush (Encelia) distal twigs at night

take a close look ... she is SPECTACULAR!

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Precious moment in the fleeting Wivenhoe sun this morning of a pair of German Wasps snatching an intimate moment... Really brought home the size difference. This is peak wasp mating time, with the male destined to die soon; the newly mated queens being the only ones to overwinter #criticalmoment

Female of Mellinus arvensis (Field Digger Wasp) on Tunbridge Wells Common today - the most late-flying of the solitary wasps

Councillor silenced in chamber over trees that appear to 'threaten the nation' Cllr Dean Evans wryly stated that the Trelawney trees in Falmouth were nothing special until a few months ago “when they appeared to threaten the…

A Cornwall councillor was silenced in the chamber at Lys Kernow / County Hall this week when he attempted to ask the Liberal Democrat / Independent administration about Cornwall's most infamous trees.
#cornwall #kernow #scandal
www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/2547983...

My final #seedheads for this week's #wildflowerhour challenge...Bird's-foot Trefoil, named after the shape and arrangement of the seedpods.

If you want to identify, well, anything, I recommend this post from @weevil-see.bsky.social. His choice of weevils to illustrate it is of course excellent, but it applies to everything from mushrooms to marsupials. This is how you can be a good identifier of things.

[Link contains spider]

Callicera spinolae, the Ivy Hoverfly, is one of the UK's rarest hoverflies, as well as one of the most spectacular.
This morning, I recorded a female on the Ivy in my S. Cambridgeshire. This is the 5th consecutive year that I have seen this wonderful fly in my garden, four days earlier than before.

A lichen-covered bench in Manaton, Devon.

There are over 18,000 types of lichen in existence. My personal favourite is ‘village bench lichen’, which devotes its entire existence selflessly to gradually making communal public seating more furry and comfortable.

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

Iberian harvester ants (Messor ibericus) rely on hardy workers that are hybrids of their own species and another one, Messor structor. But the queens don’t bother keeping any M. structor males around: they make their own.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

📣 New research, including @savebutterflies.bsky.social #citizenscience data, shows winners & losers across >1200 insect species in Britain since 1990. Urbanisation identified as major driver of decline for moths, ladybirds & hoverflies www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌍 🦋🐞🦗🪲🐝