It was buzzing at the #BeesNeedsWeek Science Festival at RHS Wisley. Visitors discovered how easy it is to support pollinator science by spending 10 minutes counting pollinating insects on flowers 🐝🌼 Take time in nature with your own FIT Count for @pomscheme.bsky.social ukpoms.org.uk/fit-counts

Collected these two 7-spot pupae last week near Clonegal, Co. Carlow. An hour later, 4 x larvae appeared in the pot. Presumed phorid larvae, they have since pupated. Hopefully some adults will emerge in the coming days. A healthy 7-spot Ladybird emerged from the second pupae.

🪰 We’re celebrating the UK’s flies! Flies don’t always get the appreciation they deserve. They play hugely important roles in our ecosystems, but they’re also amazing in their own right. They can be beautiful, colourful and wonderfully weird.

NEW: a "Quick Guide" to FIT Counts (pdf) is now available from the PoMS website, providing a summary of how to do the counts and how to recognise the insect groups. This is a welcome addition to our more detailed guides, which are of course still available as well! ukpoms.org.uk/news/quick-g...

Great to be partnering with National Garden Scheme on The Big British Garden Survey to reveal the wildlife thriving in our gardens 🦋🐞. Record what you see and help build a national picture of UK #biodiversity. Join in: ngs.org.uk/the-big-brit... 🧪 @abigaillowe.bsky.social

UKBMS results out today! Results from fifty years of butterfly monitoring! The UKBMS data reveals declines in 33 species over the last 50 years. Check out the full story below butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blo... And the full 2025 statistics can be found here: jncc.gov.uk/our-work/off...

Fifty years of data reveal specialist butterflies disappearing across UK

An extraordinary dataset of over 44 million records from 782,000 volunteer surveys has revealed what has happened to the UK's butterflies as the national landscape has changed over the past 50…

butterfly-conservation.org

Our new Atlas of UK spider, harvestmen and pseudoscorpion records is now online at britishspiders.org.uk/atlas. It gives access to 1.6 million records and is constantly updated with data submitted and verified via irecord.org.uk/enter-srs-records.

📢CALL FOR COLLABORATION📢 My PhD student Warre is looking for flies infected with #Laboulbeniales fungi. Especially Musca domestica! If you have any, store in 96% ethanol or in the freezer, record on @inaturalist.bsky.social, and/or contact Warre. #TeamLaboul #LFEE #LuminaQuaeruntur

Welcome to the new season for #pollinator FIT Counts! Our latest e-news was sent out this morning - read it here mailchi.mp/7e658beeba40... and subscribe at ukpoms.org.uk/subscribe As soon as the weather is warm enough we hope that you will enjoy watching and counting insects on flowers with us.

New projections of British biodiversity under plausible climate & land-use futures Severe futures have 12-20% birds, butterflies, plants going extinct & major changes to ecosystems More sustainable scenarios only decrease & do not stop loss; but require urgent action www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🏅 Shortlisted for the 2025 Robert May prize! 🏅 In his blog post, @robboyd.bsky.social talks about his paper 'Using causal diagrams and superpopulation models to correct geographic biases in biodiversity monitoring data' 🌍 🧪 Read the blog and find the full article 👇 buff.ly/a7UROJJ

Robin Boyd: Using causal diagrams and superpopulation models to correct geographic biases in biodiversity monitoring data

Throughout March, we are featuring articles shortlisted for the 2025 Robert May Prize. The Robert May Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Methods in E…

methodsblog.com

Nadine's wildlife allotment is one twenty gardens in the 2016-2026 "Best of the Best" competition of Gardener's World magazine. Public voting is open to 27 March for UK residents www.gardenersworld.com/news/gardens...

Gardens of the Year 2026 - Best of the Best

Be a part of our 10-year Gardens of the Year anniversary by voting for your favourite garden from 2016–2026, with a chance to win a £100 Crocus voucher to spend on your plot

gardenersworld.com

🦗 This #WorldWildlifeDay, discover Britain's grasshoppers, crickets & allied species in a brilliant new field guide! It's co-written by our former colleague Björn Beckmann with recording scheme coordinator Peter Sutton. Allied species are earwigs, stick insects, mantids and cockroaches 🪳 🧪 1/

On Friday, I found this 24-spot Ladybird (Subcoccinella 24-punctata), with what looks like a Tachinid egg on it. I know Medina separata attacks the Coccinellidae, but they usually lay eggs under the elytra. This ladybird also has a white substance on the face (+ a baby springtail on the pronotum...)

What better for #FlyFriday than a phantastic phebruary phorid lurking outside a rabbit burrow at @yorkswildlife.bsky.social Cali Heath reserve in East Yorkshire, UK today?! @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

I am working with #citizenscientists this weekend in the @taxonexpeditions.bsky.social entomological collection, to screen insects for the presence of ectoparasitic microfungi. This project is supported by @msafungi.bsky.social. #TeamLaboul #Laboulbeniales

As requested by many, here's the link to our YouTube channel with the recordings from the excellent Dipterist Day 2025 in Cambridge youtube.com/playlist?lis... @davebriceflies.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @lancefly.bsky.social @naturebureau.bsky.social @norfolknats.bsky.social Please share 🙏

Dipterists Day 2025 - YouTube

Recordings of talks from Dipterists Day 2025, held at the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge on Saturday 15th November.

youtube.com

Hesperomyces virescens. This moss-looking fungi is has infected this Harlequin ladybird. It is sometimes called the Green Beetle Hanger. Spotted in Cambridge today.

Call out to anyone with UK records of Sphaeroceridae not on NBN/iRecord. Looking at getting the best distribution possible for a new key, I realise this will be a 'best possible', but more the merrier. Please share @dipteristsforum.bsky.social @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @respublications.bsky.social

Turning wildlife sightings into powerful data 🐝🌿 Every iRecord submission supports research and conservation nationwide. Join iRecord 101 with @earthwormuk.bsky.social Brown (Thu 2 Apr 2026) and learn how to get started or level up. 👉 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1734876575... @ukceh.bsky.social

Nice to be starting 2026 with our new paper with @sei.org on making #CitizenScience biological recording more inclusive @savebutterflies.bsky.social doi.org/10.5334/cstp...

Increasing Inclusivity in Biological Recording in the United Kingdom: Progress to Date and Future Priorities | Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

doi.org

iRecord and other Indicia websites seem to be down at the moment, an unexpected side-effect of IT maintenance at UKCEH, due to be completed by c. 9.30 this evening

A convergent ladybird (named for the converging white lines behind the head) sets in on a herd of milkweed aphids (Arizona, June 2025). I love a well-composed shot of textbook bug behavior.

Day 11 of #InsectAdvent - its Saturday night so XMAS PARTY (maybe romance..) Lets put on some perfume. This female Megaselia (Phoridae) releases from her dorsal abdominal glands, a fragrance so strong the males just have to immerse themselves in it @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Attending #BES2025? Join the ALDER, REED, & EDGE networks for our triple festive social 🎄🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ 📍: Roxy Lanes, Edinburgh 🕐: 19:30 Wednesday 17th Dec We hope to see you there! 😁 More info: www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/bes-... @britishecologicalsociety.org

If you are attending #BES2025 and are interested in #biodiversity monitoring in the UK, come to our lunchtime workshop on creating a UK Biodiversity Observation Network.

Come and work with members of the @pomscheme.bsky.social team on this exciting NEW PhD opportunity! Full details below ⬇️🐝🪰🐞

Francesca Mancini@francescamancini.bsky.social · 8mo ago

PhD opportunity! Want to help protect UK pollinators and shape real biodiversity policy? This project with @ukceh.bsky.social & University of Reading puts you at the heart of major ecological questions. blogs.reading.ac.uk/crocus-dla/c...

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 😞

AJCann@ajcann.bsky.social · 9mo ago

More Mapping the UK's Flat Flies Project results published today with Adrian Smith & @sheldonbirds.bsky.social 212 host-parasite interactions, including 70 not previously reported, & a recent switch to gulls by some Louse Flies, Hippoboscidae. @btobirds.bsky.social @dipteristsforum.bsky.social

Citizen science reveals host‐switching in louse flies and keds (Diptera: Hippoboscidae) during a period of anthropogenic change

A study of louse flies in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, and Ireland found 212 different interactions between Hippoboscidae and their hosts, of which 70 were previously unrecorded. No louse flies ...

doi.org

📣 Read the latest UKCEH Biological Records Centre newsletter for updates on national recording schemes, wildlife recording practices, new tech & more! 🔗 Get the new edition, past issues or subscribe here: buff.ly/aJJ9LaY #wildlife #BiologicalRecording @jncc.bsky.social