Matt P

🫣🫣🫣

A curtained four poster bed with late afternoon sunlight streaming in

Classy rental cottage next two nights 😉

I misty snow clad hill looming over houses beneath a wooded hillock

Light snow on hills behind a river

Well that was unexpected…

Oh squeak! It’s official publication day!

Thats what I *should* do… cheers 🫡

Do as I say not as I do 😉 Marathon on Sunday and very ‘meh’ about it 😕

Small group of people examining plants along a woodland path, using a field guide and looking closely at vegetation during a wildlife recording outing.

Close-up of a buff-tailed bumblebee feeding on a bright pink thistle flower, with green foliage softly blurred in the background.

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Cheers James, a ways to go but definitely improving ☺️

Mauve flowers of Crocus Hummingbird backlit by spring sunshine, golden anthers just peeking over the tepals

Crocus ‘Hummingbird’ revelling in the warm sunshine today ☺️

Center Parcs right to roam restriction approved for Borders Restrictions at the site of its first Scottish holiday village will come into force in April.

Right to.. oh.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I do love a ghost gable like this found near Ancoats in Manchester - but it's rarer still to find the intangible signs of the puff of smoke from the chimney...

A Brocken spectre on a sea of cloud above Patterdale in Cumbria

Same effect as produces Brocken spectres?

Summary stats for a post lurgy fartlek

pace chart for a fartlek session

summary stats for a sunday run with a fast final 20 minutes

elevation profile for sunday run, long slow uphill followed by some ups and downs and a nice flat finish

After getting body-slammed by a nasty cold 10 days ago it was good to get out yesterday and today. Morland Marathon might still happen after all 🤞

Top job both 🥳🥳

Still running though - top job ☺️ Far more folk would just quit

Having never seen an Ulmus seedling Im amazed how similar the cotyledons are to Carpinus - beautiful photo!

Pale lilac blooms of Crocus tommasinianus backlit by February sunshine

White crocus with a yellowish throat, backlit by spring sunshine

Crocus Prins Claus - white with a steely purple sploosh on the outer three tepals

Crocus Hummingbird showing off vivid violet tepals

Crocus stealing the limelight from Galanthus today

A misty scene around dawn, spiky foliage of a Yucca in the foreground

Fluffy seed heads of a grass, backlit by early sun

Lanky twisted forms of Nootka cypress Jubilee with blue sky behind

There are worse places to work - a day teaching conifer ID to an enthusiastic group of ecologists, a pleasant change to the usual.

Youngster 😉

Don’t forget your Obolos!

Tassle like flowers, palest yellow easing into an apricot red tip with some green leaves

A new tree for me today at Bedgebury Pinetum, Sycopsis sinensis - or even better, the Chinese fig-hazel.

Crocus flowers starting to unfurl, pale outer tepals streaked with purple, amethyst inners just peaking out

Leucojum flowers, brilliant white and green against a carpet of browns

A statuesque snowdrop, bought as Cambo superb from Cambo gardens but no trace of it so far in online searches.

Eughh, a streaming cold since Thursday has meant no running - with only 2 weeks til the Morland Marathon I’m not impressed. But hey, spring is coming ☺️

I’ll be watching and waiting for the big reveal

Beard glitter?

Time for some beard baubles!

The movement required to cross Molinia was affectionately referred to as doing the Molinia disco by a fellow botanist up here.

Some Douglas fir are taller, particularly in Scotland. The Tree Register of the British Isles will be the place to look ☺️

I should have said ‘relatively’ short

How do I become a paleontologist? This is a revised and updated version of an old post of mine that’s now nearly 10 years old, so it seemed sensible to give it a polish and re-release it into the wild. So, what do you do to become …

I've decided to revise and update one of my most important and popular blogposts "How do I become a paleontologist?".

I still get asked this every few weeks so having a new version of this post to share is so useful to put people on track.

archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/h...

Running shoes in deep snow

Almost a snow whiteout with precious few dark details picking out a track through heather

Snow blasted hillside with thick mist

Eyes like chickpeas and a cold nipped nose

well that got a bit too interesting too quickly. Breaking trail through Knee deep snow uphill is a 🤬🤬 Another 4h and 1020m in the bag, just 41km today