My first Peacock butterfly of the year, on Clay Pits Lane near Stocksbridge. #springwatch
03.03.2026 14:42
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My first Peacock butterfly of the year, on Clay Pits Lane near Stocksbridge. #springwatch
📄 A Festival of Amateur Natural History 🔍
Key insights from talks on Henry Seebohm, crayfish conservation, ancient wood pasture, golf course wildlife & more.
#NaturalHistory #Naturewriting #NatureGolf #Botanists #Crayfish #Sorby #Woodpasture #Habitats #GardenWildlife
@sorbynathissoc.bsky.social
It’s so exciting to see your #SpawnSurvey sightings start to come in! 🗺️
This year's first record was of frog spawn in puddles in Cornwall on 2nd December. Don't forget to add your sightings to the form on our website. 🐸
The map shows sightings submitted up to 10th February 2026.
Getting to grips with iRecord 📱📝
New to iRecord or finding it tricky? Our iRecord 101 course takes you step-by-step from first record to confident user, with tips from recording specialist Keiron Brown. 🌍 🧪
Thu 2 Apr 2026
👉 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/irecord-10...
@ukceh.bsky.social
South Yorkshire Natural History Day: a Festival of Amateur Natural History. Saturday, 21 February 2026 at Treeton Miners Welfare, Arundel Street, Treeton, S60 5PW. Attendance is free for all. No need to book in advance. Full details at www.sorby.org.uk/south-yorkshire-natural-history-day-2026
Launch Night tomorrow!
Weds 11th Feb 26, 7.15pm
LT2
Diamond Building
Leavygreave Rd
S3 7RD
#ukbirding
#NBNawards26 are open! Know someone making a real difference to UK wildlife recording? A dedicated recorder, brilliant verifier, inspiring young naturalist? The NBN Awards celebrate the people and groups helping us better understand the UK’s biodiversity. Nominating is simple. bit.ly/NBNawards26n...
Screenshot from the iRecord website.
I've just passed the 90,000 records milestone on #iRecord: 54,939 of my own records and 35,061 records uploaded on behalf of colleagues at @sorbynathissoc.bsky.social (with their permission).
It's arrived! Pan-species Listing: How to Become a Super-Naturalist published by @pelagicpublishing. My first book.
I am so pleased with it. It looks amazing, all those photos of incredible British species really make this a very colourful book and a celebration of how fantastic our wildlife is.
The front cover of the Sorby Newsletter for March 2026, featuring a photo of a Northern Hairy Wood Ant nest mound on the Longshaw Estate.
The latest edition of our monthly newsletter is available now!
For details of how to join, please visit www.sorby.org.uk/about-us/membership
🦋 Pan-Species Listing: Become a Super-Naturalist
Record all the wildlife you see in the UK and level up your natural history skills.
Join @graemelyons.bsky.social Lyons on 13 May to discover the world of PSL. @panspecieslisting.bsky.social
🎟️ FREE! Book now: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1977266072...
Read about me waffling on about being a naturalist here,
www.ynu.org.uk/about-the-yn...
It's not long.
Natural history societies work by members stepping up to help out. Maybe you could offer to lead a walk or become a trustee of one near you.
@ynuorg.bsky.social @sorbynathissoc.bsky.social
Our Head of Surveys @debalmer.bsky.social completed her third Winter Bird Survey visit to one of her squares in Thetford Forest. She has surveyed this square for @bbs-birds.bsky.social since 1994! An incredible effort!
You can sign up for the Winter Bird Survey here ➡️ www.bto.org/winbs #UKBirding
Due to icy roads and paths this morning we have decided to change the Sorby Fungus Group Winter Wander and Planning meeting to an ONLINE meeting at 10.30am. We have CANCELLED the plan to meet at Graves Park.
Sunday book review: Pan-species Listing by @graemelyons.bsky.social
Publisher: @pelagic.bsky.social
Review: markavery.info/2026/01/04/s...
"Hardly anyone has the knowledge to write this book & even fewer could write it so well!"
Happy Christmas from NatureBureau - our office is now closed til 5 January but you can still pre-order our #FliesofBritainandIreland - due late Jan/early Feb 2026. Pre-order now bit.ly/4dqQI8Z @gailashton.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @wildlifekate.bsky.social
The Spawn Survey is open until May 2026, and you can add your sightings here: freshwaterhabitats.org.uk/advice-resou...
Not long now until our 15th #NewYearPlantHunt!
From 1 - 4 January, let's head out and see how many wild or naturalised plants we can find in bloom.
Resources to help us:
bsbi.org/take-part/ac...
The data we collect will deepen our understanding of how our plants are responding to a changing climate.
“Lichens of Britain & Ireland” by Rebecca Yahr and Frances Stoakley is finally available for purchase. This has been a much needed ID guide for beginners to intermediates and the publication is finally here!! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/lichens-o... #bloomsbury #lichens
I've recorded wildlife for many years, starting with pen and paper, but in the last several years mostly recording on apps. (I still use paper to tally my moth trap findings).
I can't imagine being bothered to write down 8,000 records in a year before apps. It surely has made a big impact!
The newly-published 2024 Derbyshire Bird Report should have reached you already, if you are a DOS member
Non-members can buy a copy, prices £10.30 inc p&p: the perfect thing for some post-turkey reading: see the order form at www.derbyshireos.org.uk/order24.php
#DerbyshireBirds
Book with pink roses on the cover
The new @bsbibotany.bsky.social handbook on roses arrived today. I'm looking forward to trying to find a few species next year.
Hopefully with some @sorbynathissoc.bsky.social and @ynuorg.bsky.social friends.
The insectivorous Large-flowered Butterwort (Pinguicula grandiflora), growing on the side of an upland stream. Its five-petalled, bright purple flowers are striking, with three broad lower petals and two narrower upper petals, and a central white area with purple streaks leading into the corolla tube. Each stem has a single flower, and arises from a basal rosette of yellow-green, fleshy leaves, inrolled at the margins, and covered in glandular hairs that secrete a sticky mucilage to catch and digest their insect prey. In the photo, four flowers and eight rosettes are shown, growing out of a wall of bryophytes, including thalloid liverworts, with some sedge and grass leaves and stems also present
A very happy lady stands at the edge of an upland stream, admiring a dense patch of Large-flowered Butterwort growing on the right-hand wall of the stream gorge. The patch is a mass of purple flowers and yellow-green basal rosettes. To her left, the stream runs gently along a flatter section, with the blue sky reflected in the water, and behind the gorge turns, escaping the shade and into bright sunlight which illuminates the heath and bracken covered slope above.
Every so often I venture south of the border, and Day 11 of my botanical #adventcalendar is the amazing Large-flowered Butterwort - native to SW Ireland, but occasionally introduced in England, including this population in Edale
Like @bsbibotany.bsky.social, I couldn't stop grinning!
#wildflowerhour
Fascinating insights from Professor John Rodwell, giving a us “A botanist’s view from South Yorkshire at the #BIBConf25. Including early influences such as his professor Irene Manton
The black and yellow of a large wasp, the European Hornet. On a cork mat with pins holding its legs in place as it 'sets'.
I am aware of how strange it is to be excited to find a dead hornet, take it home and stick a pin through it.
It's doesn't mean I'll stop doing it though.
It dwarfs all the other hymenopterans I have specimens of. A giant predator of the insects.
@sorbynathissoc.bsky.social
@ynuorg.bsky.social
📢 Our Christmas sale starts today! Use code XMAS30 at the checkout to save 30% 🎄📚️🎄
#christmassale #booksale #specialoffer #discountcode #wildlife #ecology #nature #naturalhistory
Pleased to see @markavery.bsky.social's endorsement of @ecology-digest.bsky.social's atlas of Yorkshire's spiders and harvestmen, which we funded with the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union.
'If spiders are your thing, then this is a book for you, particularly, but not only, if you live in Yorkshire'
Found a range of fungi incl. these smart Scarlet Waxcaps (Hygrocybe coccinea) nr Ringinglow, S.Yorkshire recently. Adjacent fields were emerald green from nitrate fertiliser application but this biodiverse pasture is too steep for the tractor!
@britishmyology.bsky.social
@sorbynathissoc.bsky.social
An unexpected outage for iRecord and other Indicia systems this weekend means that you won't be able to add records to the websites. It is still possible to add records to the iRecord apps, but you won't be able to upload them until this is fixed 😞
