The most globally significant groups of pollinators are well known and have been studied for a long time: bees and wasps, flies, butterflies and moths, birds, bats and beetles are all familiar to those of us with an interest in pollination ecology. However, every few years a new type of pollinator or a novel pollination ..read more

Despite claims to the contrary, the total demise of the ecology blogosphere has not yet occurred. Some of us are still going strong, and others such as Dynamic Ecology and Jabberwocky Ecology have reactivated after a prolonged hiatus. It seems timely, therefore, to revisit the whole notion of ecological blogging, what it’s for, and what ..read more

Why do authors write about ‘nature’? What are their motivations and how did they start their writing journey? Do they even recognise this label of ‘nature writer’? These are just some of the questions I’ll be exploring with two other authors at the Market Harborough Book Festival on Saturday 5th October. Jack Cornish is author ..read more

Over at the Dynamic Ecology blog, Jeremy Fox has provided a link to a company called Not Quite Past that uses AI to generate an image for a ceramic tile in the style of Dutch Delftware based on the prompts that you give it. That part is free, but if you wish the company will ..read more

Just after I arrived in Northampton in 1995, I set about looking for suitable local sites for conducting pollination ecology field work for myself and students. The campus on which we were situated at the time was adjacent to an urban park – Bradlaugh* Fields – parts of which were designated as local nature reserves ..read more

Last week I had the pleasure of travelling to Paris via Eurostar for the launch meeting of the EU Agency for Railways-funded SYMBIOSIS project, held at the headquarters of UIC – the International Union of Railways. This is my second project working with UIC on questions concerning how the European rail network both impacts and ..read more

Later this month I’ve been invited by the Oxford Ornithological Society to give a talk about my new book Birds & Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Year Relationship. The talk will summarise the main themes from the book, particularly the sheer diversity of birds that can act as pollinators, what it means for the ecology ..read more

The latest paper from Muzafar Sirohi‘s PhD work on urban solitary bees has just been published in the journal Zoodiversity, a publication of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In this paper we looked at how the flight periods of urban populations of bees differ from those in surrounding nature reserves and other “natural ..read more

Earlier this year I was invited by the editor of British Wildlife magazine to write a piece for their Changing Perspectives section about how odd Europe is when it comes to bird pollination. It’s based on one of the chapters in my book Birds & Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Year Relationship. If you subscribe ..read more

It’s very easy to get a fixed idea of what you think a particular group of plants ‘ought’ to look like, based on those that are most familiar to you from where you live. But exploring a good botanic garden always reveals surprises, as far as plant families are concerned. Willows (or osiers) provided me with a great example recently. Based on those that I am familiar with, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from the family Salicaceae, which includes not just willows (Salix spp.) but also aspens and poplars. Then you encounter the trunk of a large tree that’s covered in viciou ..read more