Mostly countryside, mostly in Essex. Nerd. Tweets far too dull to belong to anyone else.
Essex
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Putting aside my usual optimism for a moment I'd just like to say we are all so totally, totally fucked.
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Enjoyed watching a wasp predate this very tattered and poorly flying large white today. Caught it, grounded it, systematically removed the abdomen over the course of a minute then flew off, leaving the butterfly still alive. Albeit not for long.
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Seal (grey), Centaury, St Johns Wort (perforate) and Stork's Bill (common), along the path at Horsey Gap today. There was more - but either I didn't have time, to take a picture (selfheal, silverleaf) or it isn't alliterative (tufted and bush vetch, birds foot trefoil).
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Sheep's Bit, Sea Holly and Sea Sandwort. Quick snaps from a five minute stroll through some flat, scratty sand dunes in the middle of Great Yarmouth with the kids. Clouds of grasshoppers. Skylarks singing. Surprisingly good, before the rain.
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Lovely lunch time spent with the purple emperors along the old road at Abberton. Lots of purple hairstreaks too, and white-letter on the dying elms. Really nice numbers of at least 9 species.
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The White Letter Hairstreaks are out! One of the best, because of how hard they work to avoid giving any sort of good view...
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Orchid counting today.
I never did find time to properly explore Chafford when we lived nearby, all the little bits of land alongside roads and so on, but they're stunning places.
Counts are down on last year but perhaps to be expected with the dry start. Some tiny specimens.
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One of three heath fritillaries seen this afternoon at a recently recolonised wood in south Essex.
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Two grasshopper warblers, a reed warbler hanging on in the tiniest scrap of reeds in a ditch, and a happy scatter of skylarks and yellowhammers. Final survey visit complete.
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Very much enjoyed these orchids hanging out under a thick bracken layer. Something a bit prehistoric underneath the weird frondy canopy.
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James retweeted
It’s almost impossible to find anyone with any expertise on farming, food and nature who agrees with the goverment’s approach of cutting budgets for nature friendly farming
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a stronger consensus about anything about rural Britain
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Poked around the Shropshire Hills today. Bullfinch, dipper and peregrine new for the holiday list. A truly stunning landscape, so much more so than I had expected, or remember, from the childhood daytrips we had here.
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Unforgivable, if this comes to pass. I wish I had faith that whoever follows this government would undo the coming harm but I do not.
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The good news continues. For fucks sake.
Fund for nature-friendly farming to be slashed theguardian.com/environment/…
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I went back for another look at the wood warbler. Two calling and singing this time, both the spinning coin and peeeuuuu songs, sometimes quietly in little fluttery song flights. These are the best photos I managed, but it was raining and dark under the canopy...
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I spent an hour in a forest on the Herefordshire/Shropshire border this morning. Found a single singing wood warbler, two spotted flycatchers (one "singing"), a marsh tit and a redstart. Perhaps not the best haul, but pretty chuffed all the same. My last WW was 2015!
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Perhaps a cool grey morning wasn't ideal for an early survey than recent sunny mornings, but I still managed a grasshopper warbler, barn owls, and a good number of warblers. Spoonbill and peregrine over.
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