Natural Historian

Incredible sight but sadly it makes too many Parts Per Million for us Tree Pollen sufferers at this time of year. Sniff. Sniff.

Primrose, probably another hybrid, cheering up a Surrey ditch #wildflowerhour

Thanks to a small outcrop of chalk, at the end of a long loop of the Greensand up to Leith Hill, the near total lack of flowers compensated by a great hedge of Winter Heliotrope #GeologyMatters #WildFlowerHour

Lucky to catch a pair of Barn Owls hunting together at the furthest point of the Blakeney/Cley sea wall late yesterday #UKBirding (best camera was smartphone I had with me)

Tend to agree about the primula in the photos I posted, taken last week, but come later March the area under the beeches can be awash with primula, though in recent years less so...

Perfectly, large patch of Sweet Violet (Viola Odorata) in #SurreyHills this week #WildFlowerHour

A well-known area of Norbury Park in Surrey has a youngish Beech plantation known for its curated native Primroses. None at all showing except for a small patch of fully-out Eliator Hybrids. But are they guerilla-planted impostors or "real" False Oxlip impostors? #WildFlowerHour #WildFlowerID

And an explosion of pollen to come - those mysterious clouds that result from a gust of wind. Hell for some of us, though 🤧

Sort of agree, so I reckon you need either loads for a good show (which takes years/decades/centuries) of naturalisation or have them mixed with other classic winter colours ... Painswick Rococo Garden; a verge by a nice damp ditch; with crocuses in a churchyard

I think the fencing (and I think gate-locking each night) might help, though around here - suburban Surrey) we do have quite a lot of open spaces like that.

Our rescue snowdrops from the M25J10 improvement scheme are doing OK, but I feel the more specialist ones we have acquired over time struggle to ever open in the wet weather has the often large petals get drenched and are then too heavy to lift up and just rot ☹️ #WildfowerHour

Lots of crocuses around our poor Surrey soils, this one from "old Surrey", a Richmond cemetery for #WildflowerHour ... Has a somewhat Spencer'esque "Resurrection at Cookham" feel to it?

Not expert enough to say, sorry. Looks like two different bugs?

Will ask the guys next time I join go to the local Natural History Society meeting. Will try for a better pic next time...

Only real bit of colour was the Gorse (again!) though matched by this Witches' Butter/Yellow Brain Fungus (Tremella mesenterica) parasitising crust fungus and sometimes grows on decaying Gorse wood, as here, especially in wet winter weather, as now! #WildflowerHour

Apart from the odd but welcome banks of Snowdrops still enjoying seedheads (Teasel and Old Man's Beard/Clematis Vitalba)
#wildflowerhour

"former"=dormer !

Only noteworthy bloom last week as ice and snow gripped our area was the crystals on a sloping former window. I think due to some rain and frost cycles #wildflowerhour

Had the same "bloom" on some windows in Surrey

Always the Gorse, whatever the weather, the only #WildflowerHour in the frozen garden. The rest are the winter colour (and smells) cultivars: Viburnum x bodnantense, Daphne bholua, Winter Jasmine, Iris and Japanese Quince.

Had hope for Juniper Top and Mickleham Down for #NYPlantHunt but all too Alpine at the moment #WildflowerHour

Far too late for #WildflowerHour but ... Was looking in the Blackthorn for Brown Hairstreak butterfly eggs and found one starting to bloom and then the elusive egg

Best hedgerows are rich in birds and their food: Rosehips, Wild Privet, Stinking Iris, abundant Blackthorn sloes #wildflowerhour

How much Lichen?

The brave flowers of our early November warmth sadly wilting in the frosts of late November #WildflowerHour

Amazing. Why would the SBN evolve to be like that? Asking to be eaten? By?

So far in past it's hard to know when/where they came from. But never flowered in November before.

Had to pop out later and ok away the weeds to check the leaves!

My ?elwesii seems very early though...
bsky.app/profile/jame...

#Winter10 included an unusual (for Surrey) Centaury (Centaurium littorale) on newly accessible short-cropped sandy grassland, Holly, Autumn Hawkbit, Common Stork's-bill, Rhododendron(!), Pink and White Yarrow, Clustered Bellflower, an ocean of Periwinkle, Meadowsweet #wildflowerhour

Very surprised to see these (admittedly planted a few years ago now) beauties pop up in the garden late this afternoon, Snowdrops in early November?!?! Galanthus elwesii I think.
#wildflowerhour