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Natural Historian

@james99.bsky.social
136 followers 76 following 196 posts

formerly @jahasse at X (formerly Twitter) Still walking while attempting to naturally historicise; battling the wannabe wood to keep a “wildflower” garden intact

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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The Ivy flowers doing their thing at this time of year, feeding all the bees. Also helping a Red Admiral, temporarily woken up by the warm sunshine. #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Bindweed swamped by Common Fleabane! #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Last of the Purple Loosestrife over a very dried out Epsom Common pond #WildflowerHour
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Sarah @sarahfaulkner.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A rather grey walk was brightened up by this glorious Chicory flower. I love blue flowers so had to stop for a closer look. The reproductive structures inside the flower are incredible - long blue & white striped tubes with branched tips curling out the top of each. Stunning. 💙 #wildflowerhour
Chicory growing along a roadside, Weymouth.
Gorgeous blue flowers with amazing blue and white striped stamen tubes, and delicate brancged stigma curving out.
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Not #WildflowerHour but today's BBC Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards nominee Fresh Flour Company in Devon is worth a huge shout-out..."fresh milling wholegrain flour on granite stones...heritage and population wheats into...[my fave] slow-dried pasta..." www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
bbc.co.uk
The Food Programme - The BBC Food and Farming Awards 2026: The Food Producers - BBC Sounds
Sheila Dillon and Paula McIntyre meet this year's Best Food Producer finalists.
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
There's something so unreal about Bladder Campion, a bunch of exploding mini-balloons that makes them my #FavouritePlant for #WidlflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Very few flowers about as the heat and drought hit SE really struggles to recover despite some recent rain, but this resilient patch of Common Michaelmas-Daisy (Symphyotrichum × salignum) doing great work feeding the equally resilient Small Copper butterfly #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Good blooms of Devil's Bit Scabious along several semi-mown verges along farm trackways in the Surrey Weald despite the heatwaves and drought #WildFlowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Brown leaves carpeting the woodland floor so it's time for Autumn cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
It may be super dry in the South but chalk is such a wonderful store of water that the Hog's Back above Guildford was full of blooms for #WildflowerHour much Burnet Saxifrage, Scabious, Knapweed in this area
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Some nice patches of Bell Heather in bloom at Brookwood Cemetery, loved by our target, the Grayling butterfly #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Little sun, little water, little soil, little problem for a deep purple Broadleaf Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine) #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Wild Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) flowers down the flower head creating some very pretty pink ruffs #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Fetcham Downs seemed to be at peak for #WildflowerHour #StillFlowering I think because the chalk is near the surface and excellent at holding moisture (Wild Carrot, Yarrow, Scabious, Marjoram etc etc)
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Our back garden is more of a (sandy soil) woodland glade and it would rapidly go back to that in the absence of good grazing animals or me. #WildflowerHour - still puzzling about the walnut!
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Trying to rig up some temporary sun shade for our patio and plants in pots, was inspired by a new visitor to the #WildflowerHour back garden, a Silver Washed Fritillary - though the resident Comma not happy! Cue aerial battles.
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Yellow definitely the colour on uncut Surrey sandy gardens and verges, awash with ?Smooth Hawksbeard (Crepis capillaris) #wildflowerhour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Never seen so much St John's Wort as in this Leatherhead chalk hillside garden, #CuratedMeadow #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
25 of the best (for us) ... peak back garden #wildflowerhour before it's all eviscerated in the coming heatwave? Will report back next week.
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Very strange Common-spotted Orchid growing in fairly deep shade on Box Hill amongst normal CSOs, Twayblades and Narrow-leaved Helleborines. Tall, leaves all the way up the stem, and just a few flowers at the top, weird! #WildflowerHour #WildflowerID
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Box Hill for #OrchidChallenge for #WildflowerHour great variety, just 6 of the 8 or more available with a bit of hill walking and local knowledge: abundant Chalk Fragrants, Twayblades, Common Spots, Bees, Broad-leaved Helleborines (almost out) and Pyramids
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
@wokingperegrines.bsky.social Is this one of yours? Square yellow ring on right leg, I think. Roosting on a church tower in Elmbridge. Often heard in the area, finally seen properly and recorded.
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
And today competing in numbers with the Painted Ladies an amazing dozen or so White Admiral butterflies on the Brambles all across Bookham Common #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Need a #WildflowerHour nod to the massive influx of Painted Ladies adorning our UK wildflowers up and down the country - counted a dozen or more just in our OxEye Daisy-heavy back garden on one afternoon this week.
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Dames Rocket (Hesperis matronalis var albiflora) looking good on a Bookham Common bridleway - should go back for evening perfuming... #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Nice to see even the #NGS open garden at #Chilworth (the new owners so well continuing the long and glorious charitable tradition at that house) embracing the wild with flowering and bug-friendly Ground Elder as well as the Buttercup #WildflowerHour #WildflowerGardens
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Roadside verges rich in Ox Eye Daisies, but also can self seed around our old (no longer a) lawn, though slower to fully arrive, and probably won't survive 34c + UV7 on Tuesday here 😞 #WildflowerHour #WildflowersShow and
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TrevorTheBotanist @trevorthebotanist.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Dune Pansy (Viola tricolor subsp. curtisii) living up to its name, nearly buried in the sand at Aberffraw dunes, Ynys Môn (Anglesey). These #tinyplants were probably covered just a few days before flowering, with only the buds exposed above the sand #wildflowerhour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
A #WildflowerHour Rose but not sure which one, in a scrap of scrub on old meads near Walton on Thames. #PlantNet gives 48% for Rosa micrantha but I will have to go back to examine the shape of the prickles... #WildflowerID
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Lydia Massiah @lydiamassiah.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Probably hundreds of thousands of Green-winged orchids (Anacamptis morio)on the meadows of Ashton Court park, Bristol. A gorgeous spectacle, with orchids in bi-colours, pale pinks, whites & much more. #wildflowerhour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Immediately recognisable standing head and shoulders above the background vegetation, a superb spike or two of Green Hound's-tongue (Cynoglossum germanicum) #WildflowerHour in a dark corner of woodland above Gomshall
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) out on the chalky N Downs, available in many (and multi-) colours. Hybridisation maybe. #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
A super-abundance of White Helleborine (Cepelanthera damasonium) on and around the North Downs these days ... Once you get your eye in. #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
How small does it have to be to be Slender Trefoil (Trifolium micranthum) and not Lesser Trefoil (Trifolium dubium)? #carrotsandpeas #WildflowerHour #WildflowerID (that's the weave on my jeans!)
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Super abundance of, I think, Common Stork's-bill (Erodium cicutarium) on acres of newly-opened area of arid sandy grassland in NW Quadrant of M25J10 #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Guess that Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) is loving the warmer wetter Winters and very dry Spring, doing really well, popping up everywhere on our poor Surrey sand wild'ish garden #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Navelwort (Umbilicus rupestris) allegedly so called because of the dip in the midriff of the leaves, always somewhat alien-looking #HedgerowChallenge #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Pink Purslane (Claytonia sibirica) escaping under a hedge, not tooooo invasive #HedgerowChallenge #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Not exactly fit for #HedgerowChallenge but on travels this week #CornishHedges are spectacular and often highly diverse #WildflowerHour
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Henk-Jan van der Veen @henk-janvdveen.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Spotting a few Cuckoo flowers is easy; finding a sea of them feels like magic—just right for this week’s #CabbageFamily challenge #WildflowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Scurvygrass on the Lizard, just about surviving the various invasions of Three-cornered Garlic, Hottentot Fig etc. Not sure if Common or English species, fairly tall so suspect Cochlearia anglica #WildflowerHour #CabbageFamily
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Cuckoo Flower with its top butterfly partner, a female Orange Tip, eggs laid here ... #WildflowerHour #CabbageFamily
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Interested whether these Early Purple Orchids were a bit veiny? Possibly a touch of the Green-winged Orchid'ness? Leaves remarkably unspotted. #WildFlowerHour #WildFlowerID
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Nice variety of Early Purple Orchids (Orchis mascula) in Surrey bluebell woods, many quite spotless! #WildflowerHour #WoodlandPlants
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Primrose, probably another hybrid, cheering up a Surrey ditch #wildflowerhour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
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
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
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)
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Perfectly, large patch of Sweet Violet (Viola Odorata) in #SurreyHills this week #WildFlowerHour
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
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
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Natural Historian @james99.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
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
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