Fantastic views of silver washed fritillary on the Doward, including lots of courtship behaviour. Flora exceptional as always with the highlight being my first county record of wood vetch (Vicia sylvatica): a stunning species. #butterflies #botany #ecology #conservation

Wigmore Rolls is my favourite Herefordshire woodland: significant for a plethora of flora, avifauna and Lepidoptera. Locally very notable for containing a fragment of W17 temperate rainforest (complete with wood warblers), calcareous flora and wood white #ecology #woodland #herefordshire

Some highlights from Tretawdy Farm this morning: Ruby-tailed wasp, slow worm, small skipper & common spotted orchid. A very underrated HWT reserve: it’s messiness makes it excellent for invertebrates, reptiles and mammals. @herefordshirewt.bsky.social

Had some fantastic insect records on @herefordshirewt.bsky.social surveys in the Black Mountain fringes, all locally scarce: Dark green fritillary, small pearl-bordered fritillary, golden-ringed dragonfly and emperor moth @savebutterflies.bsky.social

Remarkable abundance of cuckoo on North Uist, bucking the trend of their southern decline. Nice to have this bubbling female on the roof of our bothy! #ukbirding #birds #ornithology #wildlife #scotland

Magical encounter with a pair of golden eagles last week in the Outer Hebrides. You can see them being mobbed by a pair of common gull and a Greenshank breeding on the moor. One of many encounters I hope to share with my you soon #birds #birdinguk #ecology #ornithology #eagle #scotland #hebrides

It amazes me that these tiny overlooked ‘arable weeds’ which grow amongst stubble, margins and crops (here field speedwell, groundsel & red dead nettle) are literally keystone species for farmland birds like grey partridge, linnet, turtle dove and more. Bring back the weeds I say!

Chanced upon this fantastic wet woodland on a site visit yesterday: the largest W7 Alder woodland I’ve seen in Herefordshire! Priority for LWS survey next year: lots of potential for rare flora; might also visit in early spring to look for lesser pecker & willow tits @herefordshirewt.bsky.social

1. This image of the Ochlon Valley fills me with excitement! As an ecologist with a growing fascination with breeding birds in the upland fringes of Herefordshire, Id like to spend this winter swatting up on some relevant research/book so that I’m well prepared for the spring (suggestions?)

8. After writing management plans for all of these sites, I have nurtured some brilliant long term partnerships with these landowners and I am now helping many of them to enhance their sites by planning and applying for agri-schemes that will provide financial support.

7. It’s clear from these discoveries that the county is under surveyed for avifauna and with the far west and far north being the most overlooked. My other takeaway from the project is that there a numerous private landowners and farmers doing fantastic conservation work in the county.

6. This is only a fraction of the wonderful habitats and species that were observed in this project. In total, 24 LWS were surveyed, including 9 new sites being designated, totalling 896ha. The project will repeat next year and hopefully there will be more exciting finds.

5. This atypical flora is a product of very high soil acidity and heavy rainfall. With less than 1% of its historic extent remaining, it is now mostly found in the Welsh Uplands, West Coast of Scotland and W Ireland. This makes this site one of the only examples in the West of England.

4. At this site I also discovered an internationally scarce type of woodland: Celtic Temperate Rainforest. This is a very unusual looking woodland with a canopy of stunted oak, an absence of hazel understory and ground flora mostly comprised of mosses ferns and acid grassland flora (NVC: W11 & W17)

3. The other significant avian discovery was the first breeding records of tree sparrows in the county in 10 years. @birder1.bsky.social and I found a colony of several pairs in very traditional farmland on the Welsh border. William even got this cracking photo of a fledgling!

2. This probable breeding pair was found by @danwebb.bsky.social at an ancient woodland site, where they seemed to favour Hazel Coppice. This was part of an exciting private rewilding project which also hosted gropper, marsh tit, pied fly, redstart, spot fly and tree pipit; some in very high numbers

1. The 2024 Local Wildlife Site Project I ran for @HerefordshireWT has now finished for the year and I can now reveal some of the exciting discoveries that were made. Perhaps the most exciting of which is the first county breeding record of hawfinch in 140 years!