UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme

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☕️ Your morning coffee depends on pollinators more than you might think.

Every day, the world savours more than 2 billion cups of coffee. Yet this daily ritual relies on a hidden workforce: pollinators. Bees, butterflies and countless others ensure that coffee blossoms fulfil their potential.

Ashy Mining Bee, Andrena cineraria

Unexpected Ashy Mining Bee, Andrena cineraria, today.
#Bees #Hymenoptera #VC55

Pollinators need more space and 10% habitat is not enough says a new study just published in Science Pollinators such as wild bees, butterflies, and hoverflies are in trouble worldwide. A major new study, published in Science and led by Gabriella Bishop and other scientists at Wageningen Universit…

Pollinators such as wild #bees, #butterflies, and #hoverflies are in trouble worldwide. A major new study, published in Science, shows that the oft-quoted figure of 10% semi-natural habitat in farmland landscapes is far too little to safeguard pollinators

jeffollerton.co.uk/2025/09/26/p...

Great opportunity to present @pomscheme.bsky.social collaborative research with @sangerinstitute.bsky.social at #BGEconnects. DNA-based transformation will only be possible with continued national-scale sampling, curated archives, data infrastructure and collaboration with taxonomists.

Faded beauty. A few Adonis Blues still going on the Purbeck Ridge yesterday, also great to see the recovery of the food plant Horseshoe Vetch after the drought, which left them shrivelled. In just 3 weeks they are now green and vigorous. @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social

Many bumblebee colonies are winding down. New queens are leaving the nest to hibernate, ready to start fresh colonies next spring. Late species like Bombus pascuorum can still be seen foraging into autumn.

#PollinatingLT

Promotional banner for the UKBMS 50th Anniversary Conference featuring the logos of Butterfly Conservation, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, BTO, and JNCC. The banner includes an image of a White Admiral butterfly on the right side.

Only a few tickets left for the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme 50th Anniversary Conference!

We're looking forward to celebrating 50 incredible years of butterfly monitoring and volunteer achievement. 🎉🦋

Book your free place 👉 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uk-butterf...
#UKBMS50

The @pomscheme.bsky.social recording season ends for the year in one week (30 Sep)! Check the weather conditions where you are before spending 10 minutes watching flowers & insects.

If you have ivy flowers in your garden, they are a fantastic target flower right now!

ukpoms.org.uk/fit-counts 🐝🧪

The sun is shining in South Oxfordshire, perfect weather for FIT Counts on the Ivy covering our hedgerows! Female Ivy bees busy collecting pollen, not many other insects today. FIT in 😉your last counts before the @pomscheme.bsky.social survey ends on 30 Sept 🐝

Well done to @whitmuir1.bsky.social for completing their fourth PoMS 1km square survey for 2025! It’s looking like a wet week ahead but still time to fit in final surveys before mid-September 🤞🐝

Hoverfly visiting a thistle flower

Target flowers for FIT Counts at the moment include heathers, Ivy, Buddleia & thistles, but if you don't have any of those nearby it's fine to use other flowers - see the FIT Count guides at ukpoms.org.uk/fit-counts and give it a try over the bank holiday 👍

Chart showing the numbers of FIT Counts accumulating from April to September each year, with the line for 2025 set to reach a higher total than any previous year

We're on track for our highest ever total of FIT Counts this year 👏🎉 - a huge thank you to everyone taking part 🙏 And there's still a month to go! All counts up to the end of September will add to the data for this year and help us monitor changes in #pollinator numbers.

Screenshots of parts of the PoMS e-newsletter, with examples of charts and images of bees on Ivy

The latest PoMS e-news went out yesterday, with updates on FIT Counts in 2025; news of a new UK butterfly; research on plants for pollinators; PoMS local projects; & some great forthcoming events. If you missed it you can read it at mailchi.mp/e73193cb8054... & subscribe at ukpoms.org.uk/subscribe

‘Bee buffets’: the pollinator pathways turning drab alleys into insect havens Corridors of nectar-rich plants encourage pollination and brighten up city streets at the same time

I do love this story - pollinators pathways and more green corridors make a huge difference. So much going on to get #rebuggingtheplanet

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Join us at the UKBMS 50th Anniversary Conference!

We can't wait to celebrate this milestone yr 🎂 Join us for a day of butterfly science, celebrations and chatting with other butterfly enthusiasts.

Book your free place - www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uk-butterf...

Places are limited, book soon!
#UKBMS50

Butterfly abundance changes in England are well associated with extreme climate events Climate change exerts significant impacts on ecosystems through extreme climate events (ECEs), which are linked to various climate variables and can o…

Interesting paper using @ukbms.bsky.social data to examine extreme weather impacts on butterfly populations. Winter heatwaves and periods of high rainfall appear bad for many species. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🌍

Yesterday we were out catching and marking pollinators on three rooftops, two of them more than 10 stories high, to see if they were travelling between them!

#PollinatingLT

What moths live on farmland?

Despite covering 67% of England, farmland is a biodiversity “dark zone”. Discover how AI & citizen science are revealing its hidden moth life in our FREE webinar:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1496618569...

@ukceh.bsky.social @abigaillowe.bsky.social @mjopocock.bsky.social

A top-down image of 12 various moths on a green egg carton.

Do you do moth trapping in the UK? We'd love your help! 💡

At @ukceh.bsky.social we're training & testing AI to detect multiple moths in a single image.

Send us top-down photos of multiple moths on egg trays to support this work.

More info & form: forms.gle/e3HzBPEd7RVV...

#mothsmatter #TeamMoth

Clockwise from top-left: Corn Cockle, Self Heal, Common Knapweed, Common Daisy, Melancholy Thistle, Cornflower, Rosebay Willowherb, Ox-eye Daisy, Devil’s-bit Scabious

Pollinators on Corn Marigold. clockwise from top-left: Grey-banded Mining-bee, Double-square Spot, Lasioglossum sp. Fagisyrphus cincta, Eristalis pertinax, Heliophilus pendulus, Eristalis arbustorum, Episyrphus balteatus.

Four-banded Bee-grabber on Common Ragwort.

Hoverfly Fagisyrphus cincta on Corn Chamomile.

Some #Speyside finds for #Wildflowerhour
Including a few blooms with wee beasties for the #PollinatorPals challenge.
@wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bsbiscotland.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social #Moray #VC95

The theme for yesterday's #WildFlowerHour was #PollinatorPals - check the tag for some great examples of pollinators in action, from @wildflowerhour.bsky.social, and if you've enjoyed watching pollinators have a go at counting them with a PoMS FIT Count ukpoms.org.uk/fit-counts

Second of 2 examples from our brilliant volunteers, gathering structured data from habitats far and wide - thank you Mariko 🙏 and check out our Annual Reports for more information about how these data are used ukpoms.org.uk/reports

First of 2 examples of the fantastic contribution made by the PoMS volunteers - thank you Andrew 🙏 and I wonder what the total number of steps would be across all our sample squares? It could be the next fitness trend 🚶‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Congratulations to our colleagues and all the volunteers for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme 🎉👏

(Bee) Sex in the city: a new study shows how urban life skews pollinator populations Bees are among the most important pollinators in the natural world, quietly sustaining ecosystems and food production. While honeybees often steal the spotlight, a vast number of solitary and primi…

(Bee) Sex in the city: As part of a recent study led by Muzafar Sirohi, we explored how urban conditions might be influencing the timing of bee emergence and the sex ratios of different species. Read more about it here: jeffollerton.co.uk/2025/08/08/b...
#pollinators #bees #biodiversity #ecology

This week’s challenge is #PollinatorPals! Find a flowering wild or naturalised plant with a pollinating visitor & snap away. Of course it’s not just about bees! Butterflies, moths, wasps, flies & beetles can all be #pollinators too! Share your pics for #Wildflowerhour this Sunday 8-9pm!

A Speckled Wood butterfly rests on a person's hand as they submit a count through Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count app.

It's the final weekend to get out for the #BigButterflyCount and help take nature's pulse 🦋

You don't need to be an expert to make a big difference for butterflies and moths. All you need is 15 mins, a spot of sunshine and patience! 👉 bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org

📷: Pallant Medical

Graphics showing examples from the new PoMS Insights emails: - Count activity: Shows the counts you have contributed in 2025 (pink line) and 2024 (grey line). Every single count helps make our data more meaningful! - Target flowers: Shows which target flowers you have used for your counts this year - Insect diversity: Shows the number of insects from all your FIT Counts this year, compared to the overall averages.

NEW: Your PoMS Insights - if you sent in a FIT Count in 2024-25 you may have had an email from us with feedback on how your results compare to the overall totals, and to thank you for your participation - and hopefully encourage you to keep adding new counts! More info: ukpoms.org.uk/news/insights

🐝 Learn how to survey bees, butterflies & more!

Join Prof @jeffollerton.bsky.social on 2 Oct for a practical webinar on pollinator monitoring.
£12.50 | Online | All levels welcome

Book now: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1334343349...

#Ecology #Pollinators #Webinar 🌍 🧪