@aivelo @morethanweeds Also, some people connected to these plants not for the science but for their potential uses, the etymology of the names, the origin or even for their artistic/poetic potential.
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Sophie Leguil
24.1K posts
Sophie Leguil
@SLeguil
Jack-of-all-trades. Freelance ecological consultant🌱🦗, writer, translator 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 🇱🇺, photographer, nature tour leader... Also @MoreThanWeeds
Luxembourg/France (prev. UK) Beigetreten Nisan 2012
5.9K Folgt10K Follower
@aivelo This is really interesting and kinda matches my own experience with the @morethanweeds project. I had more interest in social media shares, online talks I was giving etc than in actual walks.
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First paper from Nienke Beets on her thesis on Stoepplantjes, a pavement plant citizen science project out in Biological Conservation! Happy to be a coauthor here. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
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@adriawildlife I can understand why one would hunt thrushes for food, and I sort of see the thrill of traditional, difficult hunting methods, but shooting chaffinches...what's the point? Food or just sport?
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CABS understates the issue.
While most birds shot *will be* Chaffinches, in practice this permission will see *all* small day-migrating passerines (esp. finches, pipits & buntings) being shot. Killing a protected species "by mistake" is an administrative - not a penal - offence.
Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS)@CABS_REPORTS
1/5 ⚠️ Hunting is being further deregulated in #Italy Several Italian regions have approved the shooting of chaffinches for this autumn. With several other regions also planning to follow suite. >800,000 protected chaffinches & starlings will be allowed to be shot this autumn.
Staranzano, Friuli-Venezia Giulia 🇮🇹 English
@adriawildlife Ok it's not exactly isolated, but I don't think we would have come back to the house in France without reliable fibre internet. No matter what one thinks of it, it allows remote working & admin, card payments for farms and small shops, website and instagram posts for tourism...
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A depressing read. A lot of the return of wolves, bears & lynx in the EU is on the tails of this process but losses in landscape diversity (& biodiversity) are immense & probably outweigh the gains.
(We're lucky in a village close to a city with tourism).
irishtimes.com/world/europe/2…
Duino-Aurisina, Friuli-Venezia Giulia 🇮🇹 English
@adriawildlife In the trap yesterday, always a pleasure to see. In French we call it l'Arlequinette (I'm guessing because its patterns look like an arlequin costume?)
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A nice Spotted Sulphur (Emmelia trabealis) on the coneflowers in the garden. Believed extinct in UK since 1960, it was first described by our local naturalist titan Giovanni Scopoli in his 1763 1763 Entomologia Carniolica.
(Carniola was a Duchy corresponding to modern Slovenia.)
Duino-Aurisina, Friuli-Venezia Giulia 🇮🇹 English
@adriawildlife Crazy year for butterflies with us here (actually one just landed on my phone while typing this!). I feel a little uneasy when people say they are not seeing a lot 🥴 Lavender also well visited by other critters.
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As the drought intensifies, more and more butterflies are being drawn to the garden for nectar. There were more than 100 Scarce Swallowtails in the garden this morning, about 35 on this single buddleia and another 60 - 70 on lavender and coneflowers scattered around.
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Thousands of fireflies flying around the garden at the moment, every night between 10 and 11pm. Their movements make for some interesting, natural light-painting patterns!
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@adriawildlife @wildernorfolk They approach natural history in a "formal" way, learning topic by topic, habitat by habitat, rather than absorbing knowledge gradually through experience? But degrees are to blame too. In Europe many have had "traditional" courses like anatomy, systematics, botany replaced. 😔
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@adriawildlife @wildernorfolk I think the baseline in the population was higher too: knowledge of common trees was part of basic education. And observation skills - learning to observe and wanting to know more about one's surroundings. Some of the younger ecologists I've met desperately lack curiosity.
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A pal has been away on a course..
‘The younger professional Ecologists all knew everything there was to know about BNG, credits, trading etc but couldn't ID a beech tree, not one of them out of 17’.
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@adriawildlife Oh not only climate btw. I work with banks on their nature strategies, and some are clearly worrying about biodiversity, because a high share of their portfolio is in high-dependency sectors like agri-food. I'm starting to get examples of insurance issues too.
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So yesterday I posted my house insurance premium (€881 -> €1409, +60%, due to metereological risks).
Today the Guardian published this. (Allianz has its second European HQ in Trieste, which is also the HQ of Generali).
theguardian.com/environment/20…
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A wonderful first full day in Rhodes for my @Mariposa_Nature Orchids of Rhodes tour for the lovely folk from Orchid Conservation Alliance. Lots of laughs, lots of great food, and lots of terrific orchids. Watching a bee pollinating a Pink Butterfly Orchid was a special highlight.
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@adriawildlife Another thought - this is going to sound pedantic - but can one really understand the potential implications of R2R unless you actually live in those places that may be/are already impacted (ie not in a village or a suburban area but an isolated house near popular walking paths)?
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@adriawildlife /as much about social inequality as it does about nature. Like a mini French revolution, fighting against land ownership (not saying there isn't land inequality in the UK of course)
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I've never met a good naturalist who is pro-"A Right To Roam". A decent naturalist obviously "roams", but they forego experiences when they assess that wildlife is being damaged by their presence.
All the R2Rs I've encountered on here are ignorant, envious & selfish.
Mark Nowers@stuttonsparrows
Discussion on @BBCr4today re Right to Roam. You can be as responsible as you like, but your presence alone will normally be a disturbance and wildlife will then avoid those areas.
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@adriawildlife The western route is getting strong in France, partly thanks to abundant alien crayfish in the Poitou region. I wouldn't be surprised if some of Knepp birds end up calling it their temporary or full time home.
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@adriawildlife There are quite a few pics on FB of the Knepp birds in Morocco, complete with garbage dump and industrial estate background. Not quite the visual selling point provided by the rolling hills of Sussex...
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I need to lie down in a darkened room:
theguardian.com/environment/20…
(I v. much doubt that "The expanding colony migrates to Morocco for the winter months before returning to Sussex to nest." A few birds might. Many stay at Knepp for the UC or wander round UK as feral storks do in 🇪🇺).
Duino-Aurisina, Friuli-Venezia Giulia 🇮🇹 English
@adriawildlife "Clearly from UK" - it's been interesting being back on the continent and not getting these reactions when I expect them. Though worryingly I am starting to see it in the younger generations, with sometimes strong rejection of human landscapes (are you feeling that in IT?)
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A friend of mine is dealing with rebutting a reviewer's comments on a paper examining wildfire risk here in the Karst. Clearly from UK, (s)he wants it rewritten so that the fire is seen to be negative, even though the burnt habitat - a rewilder's wet dream - is secondary 2/3
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With me Richard is preaching to the converted. Indeed I never thought it was any other way (that historical land management by human interventions has largely added to European biodiversity.)
You can read his article with no paywall here:
scribehound.com/countryside/sh…
1/2 but read 2/2:
Richard Negus@TrooperSnooks
Are hedgerows, or even the Fens and The Broads, any less magnificent because they were made and managed by man? My latest for @scribehound_ctr on 'Man-made nature' coming up next week.
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@adriawildlife All the time. Because of the geography here, just on the edge of a hill, there are strong thermals and we see them picking up height so fast. We're getting quite a lot of night time migration too.
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@SLeguil I love the fact that you can hear them a quarter of an hour before they arrive! At first it's "was that a crane?", then "they're coming this way" & then "how close will they pass?". These were a bit high today. They trumpet a lot gaining height but fall almost silent in the 'V'.
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@adriawildlife Also heard the first (and very loud) Skylarks today. Made me instantly happy 😌
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@adriawildlife Thousands passing above our house today. The soundtrack of spring and better days to come...
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