PoMS FIT Counts reveal Common Ivy as the most popular flower for pollinating insects! Read more in today’s news story from our partners at @savebutterflies.bsky.social ⬇️

Butterfly Conservation@savebutterflies.bsky.social · 2w ago

Ever wondered where all the pollinators hang out? 🦋🐝 An eight-year study has revealed that Common Ivy is the most popular flower among pollinating insects 👉 butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blo... @pomscheme.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social @jncc.bsky.social

🎉Congratulations to everyone involved in this new PoMS paper! PoMS provides the evidence needed to understand how pollinators in the UK are doing and focus conservation work where it's most needed.🐝🦋

UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme@pomscheme.bsky.social · 4w ago

PoMS reaches another key milestone with publication of our modelling paper and blog on the eve of the last day of our 10th survey season!! 👏🎉 Thanks as ever to all the volunteers, partners and funders who have made this possible 🙏 🌟 More details below!

PoMS reaches another key milestone with publication of our modelling paper and blog on the eve of the last day of our 10th survey season!! 👏🎉 Thanks as ever to all the volunteers, partners and funders who have made this possible 🙏 🌟 More details below!

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)@ukceh.bsky.social · 4w ago

🐝 🪰 How can we track change across the UK's insect pollinators? A new paper from @pomscheme.bsky.social outlines how we're generating robust metrics to monitor pollinator trends at a national scale. Another key milestone for PoMS! besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 🧪 1/

Fading Asters are still a magnet for Drone Flies. Eristalis arbustorum. #Diptera #VC55 #flies

Leave the leaves! 🍂 🍁 Leaves are habitat that support pollinators and other invertebrates and provide them with the shelter they need to survive the winter... xerces.org/blog/leave-t...

Leave the Leaves!

One of the most valuable ways to support pollinators and other invertebrates is to provide them with the shelter they need to survive the winter. Thankfully, all you need to do is do less yard work.

xerces.org

Roadside pollinator populations and the negative impact of intensive roadside vegetation maintenance... resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Roadside pollinator populations and the negative impact of intensive roadside vegetation maintenance

Less intensively managed roadsides had higher numbers of flower flies and bees; bee diversity was also higher in those roadsides. Community composition was similar across both management types, indi...

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Last few days left for your FIT Counts! 😃 If you can find flowers and good weather you can still contribute a #pollinator count - but hurry 👩‍🦽🏃🚴‍♀️ the season ends on Weds 30 September ⏳️

Martin Harvey@kitenet.bsky.social · 4w ago

A random car park stop gave an opportunity for a late-season @pomscheme.bsky.social FIT Count on Ivy, with plenty of wasps + hoverflies, other flies, butterflies and honeybees

2026 gave us more butterflies on Dutch Butterfly Monitoring transects than 2023 and 2024 (these years were the worst since 1990), and a little bit more than 2025, especially in August. But beware of shifting baseline, numbers in most years in the 1990s were often twice as high as nowadays.

How to create a garden for the future, with Nadine Mitschunas podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

How to create a garden for the future, with Nadine Mitschunas

Podcast Episode · BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Podcast · September 21 · 46m

podcasts.apple.com

Definitely feels like wasps that managed to survive the heatwave are now popping up on the Ivy! Got a spare 10 mins? Do a #FITcount for @pomscheme.bsky.social!

Claire Carvell@clairecarvell.bsky.social · last mo.

Ten days left to do a #FITcount in the 2026 @pomscheme.bsky.social survey season! Been watching lots of Ivy bees on the Ivy flowers on our garden fence. Not as many wasps as I remember from previous years. What’s visiting your Ivy? @waspwoman.bsky.social

PoMS partner @btobirds.bsky.social is seeking volunteers for winter bird surveys at coastal sites - an opportunity to fill the gap before next year's pollinator season 😀

Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) | Goose & Swan Monitoring (GSMP)@webs-gsmp.bsky.social · last mo.

We need your help!🫡 The NEWS IV survey period runs again from 1 December 2026 - 31 January 2027 🎉 If you'd like to take part in a single-visit waterbird count along a stretch of coastline this winter, visit www.bto.org/webs-news for more info on how you can get involved🦆 #Ornithology #UKBirding

A great collage of insects visiting Ivy flowers, from last Sunday's #WildflowerHour 👍 #Pollinator FIT Counts on Ivy (& other flowers) can be done until end of September, & with some dry weather forecast this week there's still time to enjoy watching & counting autumn insects ukpoms.org.uk/fit-counts

@s4r4h-l@s4r4h-l.bsky.social · last mo.

#Wildflowerhour Ivy flowers locally are out! Here are just a few visitors; wide eyed ivy #bees, the footballer and batman #Hoverflies. Such a wonderful plant for #pollinators, then berries to feed the birds in late autumn too! #Preston #Lancashire @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Ten days left to do a #FITcount in the 2026 @pomscheme.bsky.social survey season! Been watching lots of Ivy bees on the Ivy flowers on our garden fence. Not as many wasps as I remember from previous years. What’s visiting your Ivy? @waspwoman.bsky.social

Fake figs, fooled fig wasps & rewarded flies: this plant has one of the strangest #pollination systems yet found in #Apocynaceae. I’ve written about the new study and how it fits into our wider work on this extraordinary plant family. Read more here: jeffollerton.co.uk/2026/09/18/f... #Biodiversity

Fake figs, fooled wasps, and another extraordinary Apocynaceae pollination system

One of the things I love about working on the milkweed and dogbane family (Apocynaceae) is that it has an apparently inexhaustible capacity to produce strange and wonderful interactions with animal…

jeffollerton.co.uk

🌾 AgZero+ datasets are now available as layers in the new Spatial Explorer. Explore hedgerows, fertilisers, pesticides, soils and recreation demands, using sensors, satellites, surveys and study farms to reveal insights into agricultural landscapes and land use. catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/47...

This year's #BigButterflyCount results show it was a very good summer for many of our widespread butterfly species. But how will the extreme heat and drought impact next year's populations? ☀️🦋 Dr Dan Hoare, Director of Nature Recovery, breaks down the results.

Congratulations on a fantastic award for PoMS team member Nadine! Her garden looks superb and is a paradise for #pollinators - do watch the video to find out more #WildlifeGardening

Richard K Broughton@richardkbroughton.bsky.social · last mo.

Overjoyed for my fabulous colleague Nadine Mitschunas. Not only an expert field ecologist at UKCEH, but one of the UK's top gardeners, winning the BBC Gardeners World Magazine's 'best of the best' of the decade. And on a shoestring budget. Look what she created: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gu2...

The results from this years’ #BigButterflyCount @savebutterflies.bsky.social are out! 👏 With interesting reflections from @richardfoxbc.bsky.social “a good summer for adult butterflies is not the same as a good summer for butterfly populations”

Butterfly Conservation@savebutterflies.bsky.social · last mo.

The results are in 🦋📢 A huge thank you to the 101,565 of you who took part in this year's #BigButterflyCount! While many widespread butterfly species had a good summer, drought and record heat could impact next year’s populations. Read the full results 👉 buff.ly/V75ZHi7

Ivy flowers can attract a wide range of insect visitors, and are one of the target species for our #pollinator FIT Count surveys - plenty of opportunity to carry out a ten-minute count before the end of September! ukpoms.org.uk/fit-counts and see the PDF quick guide at ukpoms.org.uk/sites/defaul...

Crispin Holloway@crispinhollway.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Lots of Ivy blooms out in Sussex too, along with lots of Ivy bees 🐝 zooming around the blooms and the surface of the ground #wildflowerhour

Do you participate in nature-related citizen science – or would you like to?📱Take part in our survey: https://ow.ly/bIee50ZHB6o 🔗 More information: https://ow.ly/EqKX50ZHB6s #CitizenScience #ForestResearch

It's certainly going to be interesting to see what effect these unprecedented conditions have had on the wildlife data collected by PoMS and other long-term monitoring schemes

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)@ukceh.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This year’s drought has been unprecedented in the 200-year historical record in England and Wales in terms of its rapid onset, dryness & heat. While it has drawn comparisons with the long, hot summer of 1976 – seen as the UK’s ‘benchmark’ drought – there are marked differences. Swipe ➡️ 1/

The latest UK butterfly indicators have recently been published. Data from volunteers who take part in the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey on their BBS squares is included in this, so if you are one of them, thank you very much for your time and effort! @btobirds.bsky.social @ukbms.bsky.social

UKBMS@ukbms.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Just published: UK and England butterfly population indicators using UKBMS data. These show a long-term decline in the all-species index in the UK of 18% and a 37% decline for habitat specialists in the UK. Check out the full statistics here ⬇️ www.gov.uk/government/s...

It is almost peak Devil's bit Scabious in Lye Valley #fen, the purple haze just does not come out in the photo. The purple bobble flowers are where all the insects are -spot the painted lady I never even noticed in first photo. @friendlyevalley.bsky.social Well worth a visit to see this display.

Discover Clerkenwell’s Pollinator Path! Join us on 22 September at 3pm for an afternoon exploring the links between plants, pollinators and people. We’ll visit two gardens, including St John’s ancient physic garden, and take a guided tour of the Museum of the Order of St John.

Just published: UK and England butterfly population indicators using UKBMS data. These show a long-term decline in the all-species index in the UK of 18% and a 37% decline for habitat specialists in the UK. Check out the full statistics here ⬇️ www.gov.uk/government/s...

Join these cuckoo bumblebees for a thistle picnic🧺 🐦Six of the UK’s 24 bumblebee species are cuckoo bumblebees. Instead of building nests, females take over those of other bumblebees and rely on them to raise their young. ⚠️Important pollinators, they are not a major threat to bumblebee populations.

Look forward to seeing this!

Linda@lindacdolan.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🌱 #insectThursday Yesterday evening I went to a book launch at Wisley for this fantastic book published today by the RHS. Three of the six authors ( including @andyentomologist.bsky.social) gave fascinating presentations. The book contains information about pollinators as well as plants.

It's been a bumper year for Humming-bird Hawk-moths, with over 8,000 sightings across the UK reported via iRecord so far. If you've not yet seen one yourself keep watching flowers (and doing FIT Counts!) and look out for their amazing hovering behaviour.

Pollinating London Together@pollinatinglt.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hummingbird hawkmoths are not hummingbirds, and they’re not hawks either, they’re moths. You’d probably do a double take if you saw one of these hover at flowers, using their long tongues to feed on nectar. We’ve seen plenty this year, always a nice one to come across. #PollinatingLT

Many thanks to Andrew and all our other volunteers for keeping our long-term monitoring surveys going during a difficult field season 🙏 Will be fascinating to see what the data shows. Hope you enjoyed the well-earned refreshments!

Andrew Lucas@andrewlucas103.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My last 2026 1km pollinator survey for @pomscheme.bsky.social today in a very dry and hot north Carmarthenshire. Five pan trap stations put up and collected, 6 fixed timed counts, 1 bee walk count, landowners thanked, 18k steps. And that's me done for the year. And now...ice cold in Clydach!

Well done to @whitmuir1.bsky.social and all the @pomscheme.bsky.social volunteers who are keeping up with their 1km surveys this summer. Please do take care in the extreme temperatures ☀️ Good to see some woodland habitat providing refuge for the insects and surveyors here 🍃

Whitmuir Estate@whitmuir1.bsky.social · 2mo ago

At last! Time to do my 3rd @pomscheme.bsky.social visit of the year to my #kmsquare for an insect survey. Not a lot of flowers on my transect at the moment. Luckily there are some insects in the wood at the end. @ukceh.bsky.social