Kieron Huston

A small bird with a red bill and yellow and peach chest, brownish back and red wing feathers. Native to China bit established in various plaves inc. MW Italy.

Red-billed leiothrix. A native of China (Peking Robin) to the Himalayas that also finds NW Italy to their liking. A colourful bird with a liking for shrubby woodlands going on the last few days. They sing very loudly at dawn then intermittently through the day. Took a while to see one.

A medium sized spring butterfly ornately marked in a disruptive pattern of cream panels separated by black lines & thicker black marks. Along the edge of the wings the pattern is a series of black arches set against a cream background giving a certain crenallated appearance. Red markings are set in a black background and are present along the leading edge of the forewing and hindwing. The body is black with small yellow patches oneach side. The antennae are black and thickened towards their ends.

A picture of the Andalucian birthwort showing the flask-like tube that forms the flower. Flies are tempted down the tube where they pick up pollen and, once the hairs in the tube wither, the flies exit the tube and carry the pollen to the next birthwort plant. The tube is like an old fashioned pipe in shape and red-mauve in colour.

Spanish Festoon is the most striking of the 5 festoon species in Europe (inc. Caucasus) & can be found in North Africa, Iberian peninsula & southern France in spring. The caterpillars feed on various birthwort species. Birthworts are toxic so confer some protection to the caterpillars #butterflies

In light of current monopoly media, I'll just shamelessly promote my newsletter that is part journalism, part scicomm, part political education. In case you're looking for some ecologically-oriented independent writing. (Also free to read)

Fossils, Bison, & American Indians How an 1870 expedition gave rise to the conservation movement

Fascinating! I didn't know any of this history.

‘This shows the value of a weedy pond & providing access to it by placing branches over the surface’

@iand777.bsky.social

YES!

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Male) at its nest in the Quantocks, photo by Ewan Flynn

Sadly 2024 was one of the poorest breeding seasons for Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers since we started in 2015. Only 11 nests were found/monitored & on average only just over one young fledged per nest. This is probably not enough to sustain the population, www.woodpecker-network.org.uk/index.php/news

Jeff Bezos never wanted this cartoon to become public.

He killed it, and as a result, pulitzer prize editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit.

Make sure everyone sees this cartoon.

Not sure - I'd of thought the grassland compartments would be OK. But the woodlands have a lot of ash, so presumably would be unfavourable. NE are addressing ash dieback by replanting to try and diversify some of the worst affected ash stands, but it will be a long process.

Pretty horrifying. If you fitted a more appropriate curve, extrapolation would be very worrying.

66 million-year history of carbon dioxide shows climate is highly sensitive to greenhouse gases Cardiff experts help map changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide in deep time

The last time carbon dioxide concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere were as high as now was 14 million years ago. Our planet is in for big changes.

www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/27...

Many SSSIs I've visited in the past 5 yrs have declined or been damaged. There is scope for recovery, but you can't start that process unless the sites are visited at least every 5 yrs. Spending time understanding sites & building relationships with landowners needs more & better resources.

A view of London looking south from the glass elevator 109 at the former Battersea Power Station. The view includes two chimneys and the redeveloped roof of the station. Further away are new developments, some have green landscaping including grasses, small shrubs and other plants. To the west is the edge of Battersea Park.

View from Battersea's glass elevator at 109m showing the extent of green landscaping. Some looks quite minimal &/or ornamental (similar landscaping can be seen at ground level). Be interesting to know the plants used & species benefiting especially inverts & birds #urbanecology #ecology #insects, 🌍

My guess would be a Pine tree, going on the stature and general size and shape. Possibly a Scot's Pine, which is widely distributed. But Black, maritime or Bosnian might also be candidates. Is the location for the picture known?

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➡️ Explore the most comprehensive assessment ever of the interconnections between biodiversity, water, food, health & climate.

🌏 Options for a just & sustainable future!
www.ipbes.net/node/85582

DiCaprio’s snake and Sauron’s piranha: Natural History Museum describes 190 new species in 2024 Over the last 12 months our scientists have been describing a dizzying array of new species.

It's @joshlukedavis.bsky.social's annual round-up of species described by @nhm-london.bsky.social scientists! This year, I contributed two dinosaurs to the list, including the most complete found in the UK for over a century, lead by @valdosaurus.bsky.social www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

A dragonfly sits on a plant stem above a bog pool. It is black with several patches of bright red. It is looking away from us so very little of the front of its head can be seen - what can be seen is white.

Day 20 of the 2024 #dragonfly #AdventCalendar. White-faced Darter is small and rare but spectacular. It's a bog specialist and mainly lives in Scotland. This one from Whixall Moss, its only site in Wales, a couple of years ago. #DragonflyAdventCalendar #invertebrates #ukwildlife

Wisdom's still alive, she's back at her breeding grounds! This season she'll turn at least 74 years old. 🎉🎊💃

Looks like a Scorpion fly in the Genus Panorpa (family Panorpidae in the order of insects called the Mecoptera). Scavenger on dead insects and will feed on remains in spiders webs - though I've not witnessed that. We only have a few species in UK. US probably has numerous species.

🌎🌾🧪🌿🌱🌻🪻🐝
#EcoRestore
#GenerationRestoration

Finally! After a few years of trying to find the right spot & time things right. I've photographed adult California tiger salamanders (Ambystoma californiense) underwater as they return to vernal ponds to breed. I believe mine are the 1st UW images of wild CA tiger sals. 🦎🌎🐸

Join us next spring for a relaxed birding break

Visit Estonia w/ @birdingdad.bsky.social in search of sea duck & owls, travel to Lesvos w/ @beardybirder.bsky.social as north-bound migrants mingle with Aegean specialities, or join Laurie cruising the Danube Delta

Pack your bins & let's go birding

Species‐rich old grasslands have beneficial effects on the health and gut microbiome of bumblebees Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

This new study suggests that high-quality old grassland may be particularly good at supporting pollinators because diverse food sources provided by such grassland provide additional health benefits.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
| Pornon et al. @funecology.bsky.social

A fly with dark maroon eyes, iridescent wings held out to the sides, a coppery colored thorax, and and abdomen with grey strips alternating with yellow and black patterned bands. It is standing on a leaf.

This is a flower fly, or hover fly. You can easily see two little barbell shaped nubbins protruding from its sides where the thorax meets the abdomen. Those are halteres, organs that evolved from hindwings. The fly uses them to sense orientation and direction while flying.
Guango Lodge, Ecuador

A gecko clings to a slender branch, surrounded by green leaves. The gecko is facing left on the branch, with its tail twisted towards the camera, and hanging down. This a leaf mimic gecko, and many of its body parts have irregular surfaces and frills that resemble dead leaves. The tail in particular looks much like a dead leaf - it is flattened, and curled underneath. The over color of the gecko is a mixture of darker and lighter browns, typical colors for a dead leaf. The eye is ruby red, with a vertically elliptical dark pupil.

A Leaf-tailed Gecko (Uroplatus phantasticus) from a nighttime hike east-central Madagascar. We saw a handful of these lizards and I'm surprised we did, given their complete commitment to dead leaf mimicry. No doubt we walked by dozens more. #herps #NaturePhotography 🌿

More Species in Small Patches vs. Large Patches: Insights from Modeling Leonardo A. Saravia, Ulises Balza, Fernando Momo This is a plain language summary of a Functional Ecology research article which can be found here. Biodiversity around the world is declining due to…

📰Published📰 More Species in Small Patches vs. Large Patches: Insights from Modeling

https://buff.ly/3YRptz4

🧪🌍

Butterflies, bumblebees and hoverflies can be equally effective pollinators of some plants says a new study Just after I arrived in Northampton in 1995, I set about looking for suitable local sites for conducting pollination ecology field work for myself and students. The campus on which we were situated…

A new study shows that #butterflies, #bumblebees & #hoverflies can be equally effective #pollinators. Read about it here:
jeffollerton.co.uk/2024/09/13/b...

Phew! I thought i was coping quite well with what has just happened in the US and then the naturespot website went down. Great you are back!

‘A special place’: Guardian readers’ generosity helps to save rewilded farm Bedfordshire farm was saved through public donations after a successful £1.5m crowdfunding campaign

The amazing Strawberry Hill farm has been saved after BCN Wildlife Trust raised £1.5 million. Thanks so much to everyone who read my story, spread the word and donated. Please visit this beautiful place and take heart: together we can do great things.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...