Peter Brash

A pink thistle growing on a smooth downy stem.

It's been a while since I last saw Meadow Thistle. This one at Wicken Fen this week. #wildflowerhour

Great Fen-sedge, brown seeds against a backdrop of green reeds.

The edge of a Great Fen-sedge leaf. A green leaf with vicious looking forward pointing teeth. Looking just like a saw, the midrib of the leaf is similarly armed.

Great Fen-sedge at Wicken Fen. Easy to see how it gets the alternative name Saw Sedge. ##wildflowerhour

A white umbellifer flower against a backdrop of reeds.

Cambridge Milk-parsley at Wicken Fen. 30 years on from seeing this on a walk led by @dartmoorac.bsky.social when I was a first-year undergraduate @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social #wildflowerhour

Yellow Loosestrife Bee on Yellow Loosestrife

Yellow Loosetrife Bee being a #pollinatorpal on the aforementioned for #wildflowerhour

Well done to Palace.

Macropis in action.

Macropis europaea, a black bee with massive yellow pollen loads on the hind tibia on Yellow Loosestrife flower.

Oiceoptoma thoracica, a black carrion beetle with an orange-brown thorax. Both thorax and wing cases having a crushed velvet texture.

Stopped off at Wicken Fen after working in Essex yesterday. Yellow-loosestrife bee Macropis europaea has been on my 'wants' list for a while, look at the pollen baskets. The carrion beetle Oiceoptoma thoracica a nice bonus.

Whoah! I hear that they've started turning up in southern England recently too

A male Gypsy Moth, a nut coloured moth with dark marbling and enormous feathered antennae.

A close up of the enormous feathered antennae of the male Gypsy Moth.

Female Gypsy Moth, a large white moth with boat-shaped wings, occasional black spots and grey lines.

My first ever Gypsy Moths at light in Essex this morning. Wondered whether the males that I caught were immigrants. Answer came in the afternoon when I found the female loafing on a veteran oak.

Has anybody ever installed Rmavis? NVC software. Trying to find an idiots guide to installing it but no luck.

Bah! Spent over three weeks in Borneo and the only Whiteheads was a distant spiderhunter.

Must have got the heart racing for a while

I'm happy to be corrected but it might be a Chloropid. I've seen chloropids of similar jizz.

Beryl

Although its head is the only thing that remains dark!

It's an incredible sight to see the males courtship flight, low over the ground in a shady wood. They look like little blobs of quicksilver that slalom through the gloom and then disappear, only to reignite a few inches away.

Argyra leucocephala. A small fly with red eyes, a silver/green thorax and bright silver abdomen. Facing towards the photographer and slightly to the left.

Argyra leucocephala. A tiny fly with red eyes, a bronze green thorax a d a white banded black abdomen (orange patches can be detected, through the wings, on the first two abdominal sections). Facing away and slightly to the right.

Argyra leucocephala. Hard to believe that the two photographs are of the same fly. It's covered in scales that look silvery when they catch the light (when facing towards you).

Hemp Nettle flower, deep pink with yellow pattern on lower lip.

Hemp Nettle flower, white flower with yellow and pink pattern on lower lip.

Hemp Nettle flower. Pink flower with yellow and purple pattern on lower lip.

#deadnettlechallenge for ##wildflowerhour various shades of Hemp Nettle. Shame I couldn't find the big un.

A photograph of an adult Black-headed Gull beginning to moult out of summer plumage. A white plastic ring with characters J2778 on right leg.

Close up ofnlegs of Black-headed Gull, left leg with metal ring, right leg with white plastic ring bearing the characters J2778.

Screenshot of a map with a dropped red pin near Oslo in Norway and a blue circle close to Liverpool, UK.

Black-headed Gull J2778 rung on 20th May 2025 at Østensjøvannet, Oslo, Norway as adult female. Seen four times within 6km of ringing site up to 17th June. Then seen at Alfred Holt Recreation Ground, Liverpool on 23rd July 2025. 871 km south West.

Solar panels equal soil recovery, maize?.....

A Bramble bush with Blackberries in various stages of ripeness.

A ripe Blackberry with a few unripe berries close by.

Hard to believe that it's possible to make a blackberry pie before the middle of July. My first ripe blackberry was on 19th June, beating my previous record by twelve days.

Clockwise from top left. Common Bent Agristis capillaris, Yarrow achillea millennium, Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil Lotus pedunculatus, Perforate St John's Wort Hypericum perforatum. I don't guarantee 100% accuracy but they're my best guesses.

Good pointing. 👉

A map of Hale and Speke, south of Liverpool with a dropped map pin close to the divergence of A561 and A562.

Saw a juvenile Green Woodpecker fly north over the road around here. Not sure how regular these are around this area? @birderjack.bsky.social @daveliverbirder.bsky.social @dfoyliv.bsky.social

I've seen them on Groundsel often enough, never Coltsfoot though.

I haven't seen a dark red since the first time I saw one, way back in 1986!

A group of Spiked Speedwells, columns of purple flowers clustered on upright stems.

A Spiked Speedwell flower. Deep purple flowers clustered on an upright stem against a blue sky.

I make no apology for posting more photographs of Spiked Speedwell for #wildflowerhour I've wanted to see this plant for nearly forty years so I've been making the most of it.

My thoughts too.

Shame about the trees and the plastic pollution but no bad thing ecologically.

I don't think you can count Labour as being on the left now. Just the most professional of the establishment parties.