Species of the Month: Humming-bird Hawk-moth Macroglossum stellatarum (July 2025)
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The southerly airflows hitting the UK in June brought an influx of migrant species, and some are easy to look out for in gardens. The Humming-bird Hawk-moth Macroglossum stellatarum gets its name from both its behaviour and appearance, which resemble that of a …
Dumfriesshire Botany Group at Tarras Reserve, 20th June 2025
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We have been visiting the community owned Tarras Nature Reserve annually to help establish a baseline of what botany exists. This year six of us met to continue this effort on what turned out to be the hottest day in …
Kirkcudbrightshire Botany Group at Dunmuck, 24th May 2025
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We visited Dunmuck by kind invitation of Laura and Alan Jones. It is a 90 acre farm on the western slopes of Criffel which their family have owned for over 50 years. There is grassland, two lochans, young broadleaved and …
Kirkcudbrightshire Botany Group at Kirkdale, 9th May 2025
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A group of 12 of us gathered at Kirkdale Bridge on yet another glorious sunny day as this spell of fine weather continued. Our aim was to record NX5152, last comprehensively recorded in 1980s and 1990s. We crossed the A75 …
Kirkcudbrightshire Botany Group at New Abbey, 26th April 2025
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A group of 12 of us met at the Monument car park just outside New Abbey for the first meeting of the season. Our aim was to record the monad NX9565 for which the database held only two previous plant …
Species of the Month: Lily Beetle Lilioceris lilii (June 2025)
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For June, our species of the month is one for gardeners, and one that may not always be a particularly welcome find. The Lily Beetle Lilioceris lilii is a leaf beetle (family Chrysomelidae), a large group of often colourful beetles. The adult is 6-8mm …
Dumfriesshire Botany Group at Warb Law, 17th May 2025
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A small group of four met on a warm day at the bottom of the track up to the Warb Law transmitter. While Warb Law is not very high at 275m it is part of the complex of steep hills …
Dumfriesshire Botany Group at Stenhouse Wood, 2nd May 2025
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Our first field meeting of the year saw eleven of the group meet on a warm day at Stenhouse Wood SSSI and SWT Reserve. The reserve is an ancient woodland notified as an SSSI as an upland mixed ash woodland …
SWSEIC Recording Group at Glenmidge, 7th May 2025
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The first SWSEIC recorder’s day of the year was at Glenmidge where ten recorders joined us on the day. Collectively we gathered 298 records for the site, totalling 232 species. The site visited covers 12 hectares of land that was …
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