Nigel Willby

Beavers provide a boost for declining pollinators, study reveals Beaver-created wetlands increase pollinator numbers, boosting biodiversity, according to new research by the University of Stirling.

Check out the summary of our new research in @jappliedecology.bsky.social led by Patrick Cook with @nigelwillby.bsky.social @dralanlaw.bsky.social @stir.ac.uk

phys.org/news/2025-11...

Himalayan Balsam stem base, River Teith

Himalayan balsam adult plant with chunky stem

Himalayan balsam is remarkably variable depending where it grows, from thin and spindly to truly giant like. These plants growing on river gravels were the short and chunky kind - only 1-1.5 m tall but a whopping 5cm wide at the base @zarahpattison.bsky.social @lizziekeen.bsky.social

The annual orchid feast on our university campus is the best yet with many hundreds of spikes of common spotted and northern marsh orchids, but I still wasn't expecting to bump into this beauty - Greater Butterfly Orchid. #wildflowerhour

Hybrid avens (G rivale x urbanum)

Geum x intermedium (hybrid of water x wood avens) going strong near Doune, including some interesting flower mutations #wildflowerhour

Globeflower Trollius europaeus

Mountain Sorrel Oxyria digyna

Globeflower and Mountain Sorrel, Ben Ledi, Stirling #wildflowerhour

Sometimes it's your duty, plain and simple #rewilding

The turions (winter buds) of Potamogeton obtusifolius in our pond are now showing signs of life #macrophytemonday

Wild strawberry Fragaria vesca and barren strawberry. F sterilis, Doune, Stirling.

This is the time when wild strawberry 🍓 [left] and barren strawberry [right] flowering overlaps in central Scotland ( F vesca vs F sterilis) #wildflowerhour

Been wanting to see Monument Valley since studying that stuff in high school geography 40 years ago!🙂

Horseshoe Bend, Colorado River, AZ

Messas and buttes, Monument Valley AZ

Buckskin Gulch slot canyon, AZ

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon NP, UT

Seeing awesome stuff like this could damn near get a person into physical geography 😉

Grand Canyon, AZ, a very very big 1000m deep hole

Pleased to report that the Grand Canyon actually is everything it's cracked up to be.

Professor Nigel Willby, @nigelwillby.bsky.social, who co-authored the study, said: “If we want to realise these benefits rather than robbing ourselves of them, we must find better ways to accommodate beavers in our landscapes rather than continually removing their dams.”

Primrose

Coltsfoot in a car park

Comfortably into double figures now in central Scotland with the addition of coltsfoot and primrose, plus dogs mercury and some early wood anemones #wildflowerhour

Gorse, OL golden saxifrage, snowdrops, winter aconite, Barren strawberry, lesser celandine, Doune, Stirling

There's now a heady 6 flowers out in the 'hood. Don't mock, that's a 6 fold increase in the last month, including the first L Celandines and Barren Strawberries I've seen here before March in 26 yrs #wildflowerhour

Invasion ecology is replete with a body of well-supported yet contradictory evidence for numerous invasion hypotheses, likely as a result of context dependency. Just published in DDI we explore the indirect effects & context dependencies in fish invasions. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Gorse

Reading about new year plant hunts in the south with 60 or 70 odd species may I present pretty much the only plant currently flowering in inland central Scotland 🙂 #wildflowerhour

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Feeling bereft now I've finished this amazing book. Brilliant and awful in equal measure.

River Teith, Doune in flood flow

Well, that'll be the morning sitting and thinking out the window....

Sunrise

Red sky on bluesky. Just stop me here.

Sunshine on Leith - out today with Stirling colleagues and @wolct.bsky.social on Water of Leith, Edinburgh to recce sites for our Methods and Applications in Env Science module

The number 1 freshwater detective agency lab night oot in (possibly) our second favourite habitat (minus Alice Turner and cofounder @zarahpattison.bsky.social for the night)