The Messy Ecologist

May is the perfect month to start our messy mission, remember to leave a messy patch of long grass this month and join #NoMowMay 🌷🪻🌱🌿🦋

Jessie Wainwright in 1974 was spreading the love of ‘weeds’ and Rewilding Britain from the start! www.facebook.com/share/v/1Cgn...

Today rather than our usual, I’m posting a photo of Dr Fortune Gomo, a fellow geographer who was murdered in my city this weekend. We need knives off the streets. Such a tragedy. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Slugs munching your crops and flowers? Well don’t reach for the chemical sprays! Birds frogs toads beetles and hedgehogs all feed on slugs so encourage them instead 🐸🦔🪲🐦

🌈Pride flag colour🌈: 💚Green: nettles 💚 Stinging nettles get a bad rep but they actually provide vital habitat and food for butterfly caterpillars in particular AND they even make great soup! 🌿🦋🐛

Another wall flower showing ‘weeds’ can brighten up any area - even stone walls! Red valerian, great for attracting humming bird hawk moths

🌈Pride flag colour🌈: 💛Yellow dandelion💛 Often called weeds, dandelions are pioneering plants, growing in all sorts of locations often providing much needed colour to grey concrete paths. They are also great for pollinators 🐝🪰🦋

The thistles are in bloom in our messy patch today and attracting plenty of attention from the local hoverflies! 💚🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

It’s World #Rainforest Day 🌳🌧️ Here in the UK we have temperate rainforests in each of the home nations! Home to over 500 species of mosses and lichens they support great biodiversity !

😊Good news story:Tiree Twist moths thought to be extinct in England since 1952 and limited to the island of Tiree have been FOUND in Kent ! 💚 www.itv.com/news/meridia...

🧡Orange 🧡 🌈Pride month colour focus 🌈 Fox and cubs aka Orange Hawkweed is an invasive ‘weed’ common in UK gardens which can attract bees🐝 butterflies🦋 and hoverflies🪰 & other insects 🐞 introduced from Southern Europe in 17th Century

What a great photo from Andrew Kirby in Somerset of this wee swimming mole!

❌ Say no to plastic grass ❌ -creates plastic pollution -loss of habitat -loss of co2 sink -inc flood risk -inc carbon -bad for soil, bugs, worms Fake grass is the last thing we need in a biodiversity crisis which is why I’m calling for it to be phased out as we #messupbritain for nature 💚🐝🌻

This week the messy patch in our garden has seen the cornflowers and poppies pop up! 🐝💚

My garden is certainly messy. The grass in my ´wildflower meadow’ is about 6 ft high and the fruit and flowers are having to share their space with the weeds. I love it.🥰

Lots of buzzing around our #messy grass patch today! 💚🌻🐝🌿 #MessUpBritain #LetItBloomJune

🌈Pride flag colour🌈: ❤️Red Poppies❤️ Did you know they don’t have nectar but rely on their vibrant red being great for attracting pollinators to their abundant pollen🐝

Fantastic news, love a good news story! The lady’s slipper orchid 👏 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What a great wee guide 🌿

#TitliTuesday Still waiting to photograph my 1st Scottish #butterfly so here are those seen in the last week in #Lancashire. Red admiral, large skipper, speckled wood and a single perfect painted lady. @savebutterflies.bsky.social #Lancashire #vitaminN #butterflies

It was performing a very good insect-attracting role, even on this rather overcast day, on this Barley crop headland in Dorset on Sunday. I'll be interested to see how many birds are drawn to the crop later in the year.

England~ the new planning and infrastructure bill will not strengthen ecological protection but will instead be ‘environmentally regressive’ this cannot happen during a biodiversity crisis. We must #MessUpBritain for nature 🐝🌹🦔🌻🐸🪻🦋💚 www.lancswt.org.uk/news/open-le...?

Great to see @vadundee.bsky.social embracing mess for nature and creating these green spaces around the museum 🌿🌹🐝

If you are a follower of our campaign to #MessUpBritain for nature, you might be interested in this newly published book by @trevorthebotanist.bsky.social Urban Plants, looks great! 🌻🌹🪻

Love the pun even if it is a sombre message Malcolm!

We each in this world of hostility towards the innocent, the hungry, the forgotten must embrace those most forgotten and that which makes our world whole. Our environment, our wildlife, our climate. Without which we wouldn't exist.

Another of my aims to #MessUpBritain is to encourage the end of regular rural road verge cutting. In a biodiversity crisis can we afford to continue this obsession with Neat and tidy, even on rural roads? Let’s inc connectivity and help restore biodiversity 🌿🌹🦋🌻

As it’s #WorldEnvironmentDay I’m sharing my recent campaign calling on all coffee chains to switch from plastic to biodegradable cardboard coffee lids. All litter is bad but plastic doesn’t biodegrade and pollutes our messy spaces. Let’s make change together ♻️🥤☕️🧋

Today is #WorldEnvironmentDay Here in the UK we’re one of the most nature depleted countries in the world but we CAN change that and messaging up Britain for nature by embracing and encouraging messy spaces is one such way! stateofnature.org.uk?fbclid=IwZXh...

Well the recent rain in the East of Scotland may have dampened those summer BBQs but they sure helped top up my garden’s Wee Pond 💧🐸🌿 #WeePondProject

Messy spotlight : Moles (Talpa europaea for Latin buffs) These little animals are remarkable- just look that those claws! They don’t feed on plants they in fact eat grubs which would damage plant roots and they aerate garden soils and improve drainage 👏😊

Some great wee messy spaces left next to the mown grass in Nicolson Square garden in @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social Showing we can have both recreational short and messy long grass! 🌿🌱 #MessingUpBritain #Mess #Nature

Great achievement by @lesswastelaura.bsky.social to get a ban made official, I see these vapes discarded in amongst the wildflowers and long grass all the time!

Looking fantastic and some excellent photos

@themessyecologist.bsky.social Priory Park, Warwick. Some cut grass and some like this. Cool.

June is #Pride month! We are an inclusive movement, gardening, wildlife and making mess for nature is for everyone 😊🌈 🌹🍁🌻🍀🦋🪻

32 years is quite an achievement, they also appeared on the first ever episode of Springwatch! Beautiful and spectacular birds if you manage to see one!🦅🦅🦅 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Consider #LetItBloomJune now that #NoMowMay has ended for another year, even a wee strip of messy grass is really helpful for nature 🌷🦔🪲🌿🐝🦋🌱

Photo courtesy of @plantlifeuk.bsky.social if you can, consider leaving messy areas even after #nomowmay as many plants won’t have managed to bloom quite yet! I’m not ordering you to leave all your garden long but consider leaving some wee strips for nature 😊🐝🌿🪲🦋 #LetItBloomJune

It’s the 1st of June, so how have your #NoMowMay projects been going? Remember if you don’t happen to have a garden you can enjoy local parks participating too! 🦔🐝🦋🌿🪻🪲

A good example here in @anguscouncil.bsky.social of when road verges do get cut, making sure to leave the rest messy for nature 🌿🐝🪲🦋🌷🦔

Lovely messy spaces for nature being allowed to bloom throughout #NoMowMay this grassy patch looks amazing with these wildflowers!🌷🌿🐝🦋🪲

Delighted to find this wee hedgehog in the garden rustling through the leaf piles we left over winter, messy corners are great for wildlife! 🦔🦔🦔

Join a FREE pollinator course delivered via emails here~ 🐝🐝 action.greenpeace.org.uk/pollinator-c...

Today Cull of the Wild is released in paperback ... and I would love you all to read it (or listen to it ... yes, I recorded the book!) - but if you already have, or just don't have time - could you consider spreading some love and support? hughwarwick.substack.com/p/paperback-... - thank you

Road verges are increasingly being allowed to remain messy which is great news! Here some cutting has occurred to keep the inner verge tidy but the edges have been allowed to bloom! 🌿🌱🌷🚙