Richard Moyse

“It isn’t people seeking sanctuary who are tearing our country apart. It’s toxic, racist narratives and the scapegoating of migrants for crises they did not cause.”

Carla Denyer challenges the Home Secretary's new immigration reforms saying they just fuel far-right narratives.

With neonicotinoid pesticide ban, France’s birds make a tentative recovery - study Analysis shows small hike in populations of insect-eating species after 2018 ruling, but full recovery may take decades

With neonicotinoid pesticide ban, France’s birds make a tentative recovery - study

Top to bottom, left to right: Black Nightshade; Black Horehound; Hogweed; Mexican Fleabane; Yarrow; Wood Avens; Smooth Sowthistle; Common Mouse-ear; Wildlife Basil; Smooth Hawksbeard.

Harder to find a #winter10 this week. But managed it, with some rural, some urban, some native, some naturalised. Names in alt text. #Wildflowerhour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social #KentNature

If only all Labour MPs would listen to this young man and support the Lords amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure bill.

Top to bottom, left to right: Great Mullein; Purple Toadflax; Mouse-ear Hawkweed; Common Poppy; Long-stalked Cranesbill; Ivy-leaved Toadflax; Perennial Sowthistle; Red Clover; White Dead-nettle; Shaggy Soldier.

I love #thewinter10 and the way it makes you get out and look. Definitely satisfying to get these together. Names in alt text. #wildflowerhour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

A fly on an Ox-eye Daisy flower head. It has a black abdomen with orange patches, and broad wings with a dark central patch.

The Tachinid Ectophasia crassipennis was a surprise visitor to the last remaining Ox-eye Daisy in the garden today. Apparently new to Britain in 2019, and now widespread in Kent according to the NBN atlas. #flies #diptera #KentNature

A large bumblebee sitting on Stinging Nettles. It has a black head, a thorax which is foxy-brown on the back, and a black abdomen with a white tip.

Queen Tree Bumblebee, Bombus hypnorum, in the garden just now. #bees #bumblebees #hymenoptera #KentNature

A panoramic view of parkland, with grass, trees and a large piece of fallen dead wood.

My morning constitutional took me through the parkland at Doddington Place. Heard my first Fieldfares of the autumn. Plus Redwing, Green & Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Nuthatch, Goldcrest, etc. Very pleasant. #KentNature #KentBirds

Two Field Studies Council publications: Illustrated Key to the British False Scorpions, and Micro Ladybirdd of Britain and Ireland.

Darn you, Bluesky - look what you've got me into! Delivery this morning from @fieldstudiesc.bsky.social. @vc40orthops.bsky.social @vc40ladybirds.bsky.social

An excellent day! Thank you for organizing it.

Juniper Shieldbug, a slender, green shieldbug with curved brown markings on the wings.

Corizus hyoscyami, a bright red bug with black markings.

A couple of bugs tapped out of a cypress tree in Doddington Churchyard today: Juniper Shieldbug and the smart red-and-black Corizus hyoscyami. They were also accompanied by a Common Green Shieldbug and a Box Bug. #bugs #truebugs #hemiptera #KentNature @caringforgodsacre.bsky.social

A pale brown, lobed, flattened fungal body, resembling a dead leaf. It is growing from the edge of a patch of moss.

The same fungus, from a greater distance, showing the fungus and moss is on the top of a lichen-encrusted tombstone. In the background is a church porch.

Interesting-looking fungus growing from moss atop a tombstone in Doddington churchyard. I took it for dead leaf at first. ObsIdentify says it's Arrhenia spathulata. #KentNature #fungus #fungi @caringforgodsacre.bsky.social

We agree - the climate & nature crises are linked & must be addressed together.

⚠️But again, there's a species-rich 'grassland gap' in vital government strategies!

To deliver, the UK government must commit to developing a Grassland Action Plan 👉 loom.ly/IGb6j_Q

YouTube video by Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts Conservation of arable plants

Discussing the conservation of arable plants at Plantlife’s wonderful reserve in Kent. youtu.be/bZaUAsvrHS0?...

How do you get to the nation’s favourite holiday destination, Spain, without flying? 🇪🇸

Our Director Anna has just come back from a holiday (ahem, research) in Malaga - just two days from London by train (three from most other UK destinations) 🚄

A dark brown bug with stubby wing-buds on the brick and mortar of a house wall.

Still the occasional final instar Spurge Bug (Dicranocephalus medius) nymph warming itself on the south-facing front wall of the house. #KentNature #TrueBugs #bugs #Hemiptera

A mushroom with blue stem and cap, amongst mosses on a woodland floor. Not as deep blue in real life - the camera has intensified the colour.

A smart Wood Blewit for #WildFungiHour, in woodland on the North Downs. #WildflowerHour #KentNature

Well, that was a great day! Always so much useful networking going on at an event like this.

Valuable synthesis - shows that where seed source is present, natural regeneration generally gives more complex structures and better biodiversity outcomes but can be helped by hybrid approaches and limited planting. #Rewilding #Biodiversity

Origins of the London Underground mosquito revealed | Natural History Museum New research reveals that these insects likely evolved in the Mediterranean basin more than 1,000 years ago.

A long-held myth about a mosquito evolving in the London Underground has been debunked! 🦟

The insect gained notoriety in the Second World War, when it fed on Londoners seeking shelter in the rail tunnels during the Blitz.

Discover its true origin story.👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

I thought this was interesting in showing two females using a single nest burrow, though I'm aware some Andrena species do share burrow entrances. It also made me get out Ted Benton's Solitary Bee book & check life-cycle - appears Ivy Bee eggs hatch in autumn and they overwinter as larvae.

Rhyparochromus vulgaris on the bedroom curtain this morning. We must have put a dozen of these out of the house over the last month or two - unless the same ones keep sneaking back in! #KentNature #bugs #Hemiptera @britishbugs.bsky.social

Thanks, Kev. The stockamsel type is new to me, so that blogspot piece was really interesting. I see what you mean about the scaling on the back, but pics were taken outside. Wondered about its origin - lots tamer than local birds, which made me suspect it hadn't come across many people.

Excellent - thank you!

... for the avoidance of doubt, I'm (very optimistically) trying to wrestle it into being a 1st-winter Ring Ouzel.😬

A brown cockroach nymph with darker spotting. A snail to the right.

Tawny Cockroach nymph, tapped from Ivy at the local churchyard this afternoon. Nice find - I haven't seen enough of these this year. #KentNature #Dictyoptera #Cockroach

#KentNature

A blackbird (?) with notably pale margins to some feathers, in water at the edge of a pond.

A blackbird (?) with notably pale margins to some feathers, on short grass.

OK - am I seeing things, or does this bird have pale margins to its feathers, giving a scaly appearance? Doesn't show in the photos, but the flanks clearly looked scaly to the naked eye. It was very tame, allowing me within a few feet. *Awaits reply saying 'It's a Blackbird, you nana.'*

Well, this brings back memories. I studied under Fakhri Bazzaz at the U of Illinois when I was there as a naive, young, British exchange student back in 1982/83. Good to see him remembered in this way.

Excellent - I shall have to try it!