iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Really disappointed that Andy Burnham hasn't made a speech thanking Donald Trump and the American intelligence authorities for their help in catching those diesel rustlers.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Nope, no, not at all. Does anybody know of a website hosting and email service that hasn't got anything to do with ai? Hostinger was ok until they introduced ai. Looks like they're fully in before with the shit as well.

An email from Hostinger, proudly advertising 'silver intelligence' a name used by Trump last week to describe something that has stolen all human produced art, literature, music and science and turned it all to shit.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Pleased to finally add this paperback edition to my library. I suppose I can now cast away the test key and make room for something else.

A paperback book: British Dolichopodidae.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Why are we destroying our biosphere by posting outrageous ai slop?

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Bar-tailed Godwit from yesterday. Feeding well at Riverside Drive.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Not sure of there's any truth in the rumours about Ed Sheeran claiming asylum in Piddington.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

What would we do without AI? USE THESE EXACT AMOUNTS.

A screenshot of a Google search regarding self raising flour. AI overview suggests using exact amounts, then goes on to suggest amounts that vary by up to 25%.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Piddington New Town has a certain ring to it. Maybe a return to the brutalist new towns of the 1970's?

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

An unreasonably balmy evening on the Wirral last night. Quite for bats but numerous satellites and this unusual cloud received the monotony.

An unusual cloud, very soft towards the right but with explosive streaks reaching into an inky blue and starry sky to the left.

An inky blue sky with an unusual cloud, soft and rounded in parts but forming streaks on one side. In the bottom right hand corner the slow exposure has caught the rear and headlights of a passing car, the headlights lighting up the green Hawthorn hedge.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Had a long awaited patch tick today in the form of Bar-tailed Godwit. Good comparison with Black-tailed at one point too. Riverside Drive, Liverpool.

A brown and white wading bird with a long, slightly uptilted bill has caught an oligochaete worm.

A Bar-tailed Godwit (rear) walks past a Black-tailed Godwit. The latter bird is larger, has longer legs (especially above the 'knee), has a straighter bill and is more rusty coooured on the neck.

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Reposted by Peter Brash

Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) @bsbibotany.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

It's been a joy to see so many people offering a huge THANK YOU to the fabulous @botanybeck.bsky.social for all her wonderful work devising the weekly #WildFlowerHour challenges, which help us focus on different aspects of our amazing British & Irish wild & naturalised plants. Thank you, Rebecca!

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Narrowed it down to two for #favouriteplant of 2026. Both were ones that I'd wanted to see for quite some time. Spotted Rock-rose the more spectacular and rare and massively assisted by @mattrjones.bsky.social Lesser Marshwort, not quite as pretty but was all my own work.

A six-petalled yellow flower, all but one petal with a dark brownish mark.

Small clusters of whitish five-petalled flowers growing from stems emerging from the axils.of pale green fleshy leaves. The stems emerging from clear water.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This is a disgrace. Brave RNLI volunteers being called scum for risking their lives to save others at sea is just plain wrong. So I've signed an open letter of thanks for the RNLI letting them know these thugs do not speak for the rest of us. Add your name? 38d.gs/jpcf

38d.gs

An open letter in support of the volunteers and staff at the RNLI

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Garganey from Lower Hide, Leighton Moss this afternoon. #Lancashirebirding

A small brown duck with a boldly patterned face against a backdrop of Greater Reedmace

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

#wallplants (very) late for #wildflowerhour There's a real transatlantic feel to the dock walls in Liverpool this year, remnants from the Tobacco trade? Thorn Apple, Green Amaranth and Common Ragweed. The latter two often appear in bird seed mixes.

A Thron Apple plant, broad, jagged leaves, like an elongated Maple. Rolled up white trumpet flowers and spiny fruits. The background is a graving dock with a red brick Great Western Railway building in the background.

Green Amaranth. Simple leaves and green-yellow spikes of tiny flowers. The plant is growing on a sandstone dock wall with a black-painted metal mooring post next to it.

Common Ragweed. Matt, downy pinnate leaves with pinnatifid leaflets.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Things to do in an emergency #3. Lou Reed plays his rooty-toot to placate an aging Noel Gallagher who is upset that the wheels have fallen off his pedal car.

A still from the emergency instructions on a Ryanair plane. It's supposed to depict an adult helping a child to inflate their life jacket; but I've got my own interpretation and I'm sticking with it.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

What an absolute prick. Hopefully won't be the last third rate academic to be fired.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Cionus tuberculosus at Blarney Castle yesterday. Couldn't find any records on Biodiversity.ie

Two small weevils on a figwort leaf. The leaf has holes and windows in it, probably created by the larvae of the weevils. The weevils themselves are dark blue-grey with black spots, the thorax is clothed in straw colored hairs.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I was in Glengarriff, Cork today when I noticed a huge longhorn flying overhead. I kept an eye on it and managed to.leap.amd bat it out of the sky, cat-like (or as cat-like as a 56 year old man can be). Musk Beetle, Aroma moschata, a new beetle for me.

A huge dark-purple longhorn beetle on my hand.

Close up of Musk Beetle. Looking down from the head. Quite large mandiblesthe head, thorn-sided thorax and wing-cases all with blue, green and purple metallic iridescence.

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Reposted by Peter Brash

Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

If this is the precedent they've set - hounding a person for their professional transgressions with no regard for the target's wellbeing - asking every journalist who wrote a hit piece, whenever they raise their head, how they sleep at night after killing a man seems not only fair but mandatory.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Up until yesterday I hadn't seen a Metopoplax of any sort. Surveying a quarry in Oxfordshire and came across dozens of Metopoplax ditomoides including mating pairs. Another location in the same quarry had lots of the rarer M. fuscinervis, again including mating pairs.

A mating pair of the groundbug Metopoplax ditomoides. Black head amd thorax with a peg-shaped clypeus, greyish wings with dark marks, particularly on the veins.

Metopoplax fuscinervis. Skmilar to the previous species but the basal part of the thorax is grey.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

The drought isn't all bad news as this Water Purslane will testify. A seed bank that has probably remained under water for years is being allowed to thrive. #wildflowerhour

A sprawling plant with green, red and purple spoon-shaped leaves and knots of pinkish flower clusters spreading out over the desiccated mud of a lake bed.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

The appropriately named groundbug Nysius senecionis enjoying the Ragwort in West Lancs this week. #wildflowerhour

A straw coloured big with transparent wings perched on the orange centre of a Ragwort flower. The yellow ray florets of the flower in the background.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Had a look at an urban green space in Liverpool today for @scouseflowerhouse.bsky.social Really wasn't expecting a new species! The picture-winged fly Trupanea stellata. Something like the 5th record for South Lancashire.

A small grey fly with green eyes, the wings are clear apart from a dark brown 'spider' mark near the tip.

A field with wildflowers planted, the foreground is mainly green and brown with Ribwort Plantain dominating, further out the canary-coloured Corn Marigold dominates.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Bruchidius imbricornis at Chirk Castle National Trust today. One Goat's Rue plant in a herbaceous border and bingo! Possibly the first for Wales.

A tiny Bean Beetle with orange legs and antennae standing imperious atop a leaf like a giant.

A tiny Bean Beetle, black but covered in greyish scales. It's antennae orange at the base and with progressively larger segments.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I know spiders aren't everybody's thing, but this Larinioides cornutus in pink is an absolute beauty.

Side view of a fat-bodied orb weaver, the body is brick pink with black markings. The spider is perched on a green dock stem that has pink and green seeds.

Dorsal view of a fat-bodied orb weaver, the body is brick pink with black markings. The spider is perched on a dock stem that has pink and green seeds.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

A bit unexpected. This Passiflora appeared to be naturalised in a supermarket car park in Kidlington. #wildflowerhour

A Passion Flower. White petals, and spectacular purple, white and lilac corona filaments, lime-green and yellow anthers and purple three lobed stigma.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Round-leaved Fluellen managing to flower amongst the sand and gravel car park of an Oxfordshire quarry this week. #wildflowerhour

A couple of Round-leaved Fluellen flowers. Snapdragon type flowers with a yellow lower lip and deep purple upper. The hairy leaves have caught sand grains and hairs.

A Round-leaved Fluellen flower. Snapdragon type flower with a yellow lower lip and deep purple upper, a cat's-claw like spur curls down from the flower. The hairy leaves have caught sand grains and hairs

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Our usual method of cooling the house by opening allow the windows in the evening is unavailable tonight. Smoke from North Wales fires has enveloped us.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

This unusually coloured Smooth Sow-thistle caught the eye this week. #wildflowerhour

A sow-thistle flower that is the usual yellow in the centre but has pale bluish outer ray florets.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Possibly the most interesting thing about this red card corruption incident is the reaction of one of Balogun's teammates when he heard the news. 'I thought it was AI'. So this great new innovation is now a byword for lies and fakery. That's the first thing that many people think of.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Two of my favourite wetland plants, the gothic Marsh Cinquefoil and the glaucous Sneezewort. #wildflowerhour

A disc of blood-clot red surrounded by dirty red-pink petals.

Creamy white discs with yellow-orange anthers surrounded by broad white ray florets.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

It's been a while since I came across Long-stalked Cranesbill. #wildflowerhour

A rather tatty pink fibe petalled flower against a backdrop of foliage.

A long, pointed seedpod with inflated sepals on a long and slender stalk. Finely cut leaf at the junction of the stem.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Upright Hedge Parsley putting on a display for #wildflowerhour

Delicate white umbels and pink flowrr buds against a backdrop of dark green foilage.

An array of white umbel flowers and pink flower buds against a backgroundof dark green foliage with a backdrop of shingle, sand and sea.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

My first fully fledged juvenile Black-headed Gull of the year yesterday. Welcome to autumn.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Ivy Broomrape for #wildflowerhour This chlorophyll-free parasite grows in a few locations in Liverpool.

A tall.plant with whitish flowers, pinstripe on the outside with pinkish-brown. Further older flower spikes are in the background and the host plant, Ivy, makes up the rest of the picture.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

My second 'county first' beetle of the week. This time in South Lancs. The seed beetle Bruchidius imbricornis. Feeds on Goat's Rue.

A close up of a seed beetle perched on and against a backdrop of lilac flowers of Goat's Rue. The beetle has mostly orangle legs and antennae, the head, thorax and elytta have various densities of pale hair-like scales.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I was hoping the early morning rain might have cooled the temperatures today. It just added to the humidity. Made me think of Cape May, New Jersey, where I spent most of the summers of my 20's. Our high humidity today is equal to their lowest humidity. No wonder it was so energy sapping.

Screenshot of humidity in south Liverpool with a low of 55% and maximum of 67%

Weather forecast for Cape May, New Jersey with a low humidity of 67%

Forecast for Cape May, New Jersey showing a high humidity of 91%

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Spent a bit of time trying to match this to something in the Micromoth book. Waste of time as it's a tiny Caddid Fly Agraylea multipunctata

A tiny black micromoth-like Caddis Fly, the wings have white streaks and spots.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

After weeks that included a variety of invertebrate surveys, I've celebrated #nationalinsectweek by doing...no invertebrate surveys. On the way back from finishing a bird survey in Cheshire today I noticed weevils on Common Toadflax. Turns out that Rhinusa antirrhini is new for the county.

A pair of small black weevils populating on the flower buds of Common Toadflax. A further weevil is perched on the tip of the flower spike.

A dumpy little weevil with quite short antennae and erect pubescence is perched on the yellow-green flower buds of Common Toadflax

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

A pair of Paracorymbia livida getting pollinator pally on an Oxeye Daisy. #pollinatorpals #wildflowerhour

A mating pair of longhorn beetles with brown wing cases are otherwise black, the long antennae that give the beetles their common name are held out in front. The beetles are quite hairy and grains of yellow pollen are scattered on them. They are resting on an Oxeye Daisy. A large yellow centred flower with long white outer petals.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

A gang of Marmalade Hoverflies enjoying Field Rose in a Northamptonshire hedgerow. #pollinatorpals #wildflowerhour

Two Field Rose flowers, five white loved petals with an explosion of yellow anthers at the centre. The top flower has three hoverflies and the botton flower two. The hoverflies have burgundy eyes, a metallic green-bronze thorax, orange abdomens with double black bands on each segment

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Another new neophyte from the quarry. Balkan Spurge. #wildflowerhour

Close up of green spurge fruits. Each one is rounded tiangular in outline, a double row of lumpy warts marking the corners.

Groups of tongue shaped yellow green leaves bearing branching stems with clusters of yellow flowers and green fruits.

Top down view of Balkan Spurge, the branched umbels giving a somewhat brain-like structure to the clusters of yellowish flowers.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

An albino version of Dark Mullein. A Mullein Moth is a pollinator in the making but isn't doing a great deal for the reproductive capacity of this plant at the moment. #wildflowerhour

A distant view of Dark Mullein, foxglove-like leaves with a spike of white flowers (usually yellow).

A closer view of the spike of Dark Mullein, the furry purple anthers are appearing.

A close up of white five-petalled flowers with five purple, furry, pipe-cleaner anthers.

A large grey-blue caterpillar with large yellow.patvhes and black spots and blobs feeding on the stem of Dark Mullein.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Straw Foxglove Digitalis lutea, another new neophyte at an Oxfordshire quarry this week. #wildflowerhour

A close up of pale cream-coloured downward pointing tubular flowers, the openings have out-turned triangluar lobes with long hairs.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Moth Mullein, a new plant for me in a disused Oxfordshire quarry this week. #wildflowerhour

A cluster of five-petalled flowers around an erect stem.

A cluster of five-petalled flowers around an erect stem. The flowers are white but have pink backs to some of the petals.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Some lepidopteran highlights from the margins of a Northamptonshire windfarm. The caterpillar of Dusky Sallow moth, Yarrow Plume, the fabulously fuzzy confection that is a Small Copper butterfly caterpillar and my first Six-belted Clearwing moth of the year. #Teammoth

A greyish-green caterpillar with paler, yellowish linear stripes. Each segment has a neat little triangle of three black dots. The caterpillar is standing along the flowerhead of Cock's-foot grass, one of its foodplants.

A curiously cross-shaped moth, colours are a mixture of cream and pale orange-brown. Perched on the flowerhead of its foodplant Yarrow.

A neat little wasp-mimic clearwing moth. Mainly black body with six yellowish bands. The wings are mainly clear but with dark-scaled edges. Some of the outer veins are picked out in dark amd orange-red scales. The background is the mesh of a butterfly net.

A beautiful slug-shaped caterpillar. The background colour is lime-green. There is a deep pink band along the perimeter of the lower body and a thin pink dorsal stripe. Erectvhairs gibe it a fuzzy appearance. The caterpillar is on a dark green leaf of one of the main foodplants, Common Sorrel.

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Peter Brash @peterbrash.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Two new scarcities for me at an Oxfordshire quarry this week. The tiny Common Centaury associated weevil Smicronyx reichi and the rather monstrous Common Stork's-bill associated Fallen's Leatherbug.

A tiny black long-snouted weevil on the stem of its foodplant Common Centaury. The thorax and wing cases have a patchy covering of grey-white scales

A fairly monstrous looking ground-bug against a backdrop of bare soil. The bug is mainly creamy-white with some darker marks on the scutellum and elytra. The body, head, legs and thorax have a warty appearance. The wing cases have long ridges and clear puncture marks, the clear wing tips have dark flecked veins.

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