1/ Spent the day with BirdWatch Ireland colleagues trying to catch oiled Guillemots in Wicklow, to send to Kildare Wildlife Rescue so they might have some chance of survival. Kildare Wildlife Rescue & National Parks and Wildlife Service and various volunteers all combing the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford beaches too.

1/3 Ragwort is a much maligned plant yet it is really important to a whole range of insects who benefit from its nectar and pollen and for other insects it provides food for their early stages. Butterfly Conservation 🦋

Woweeee 🤩 there's a RED KITE on Rathlin today!!! It soared overhead twisting and turning for a few moments, then swept away out of sight

The enigmatic ‘sky-dancing’ Hen Harriers are now a rare sight in our skies.

The 2023 Hen Harrier Survey was conducted in partnership with RSPB NI, NIRSG and DAERA to understand more about this rare species.

Cars stranded, businesses flooded and people rescued from flood waters.

What hasn’t been added to this story is that Wirral Council have obtained Natural England NW consent to remove developing saltmarsh right in front of this portion of coast, a naturally occurring flood defence.

So much stuff washed onto beach on last months spring tide. Been picking up what I can daily for past 10 days but with a bad back recently it’s been tricky. Not made a dent in it yet😩

It was quite alarming today to see how many invasive slipper limpets there are now along the shore at Hazelbank Park. Within a short section I picked up about 13 clumps which had at least 49 limpets in total. Noticing them more and more around Belfast Lough…

'Checked for nests' - what rubbish! A half-constructed warbler nest, like say a Chiffchaff, would be very difficult to detect without very careful observation.

New site for skunk cabbage on the Lagan Towpath Belfast City Council - could you pass on to the LVRP team to ask them to sort before it spreads?

Beach cleaners and beachcombers I need your help. Can anyone help me identify this #MysteryObject ? Found two of these on recent litter picks along the coastline here in Bangor, Co. Down. Someone suggested they are something to do with toy guns, but that’s as far as I’ve got.

This Smartie lid, found on our beach clean this morning, is between 53 and 64 years old. Plastic Smartie lids with a capital letter or number were introduced in or around 1960. In 1971, the capital letters and numbers were replaced with lower case letters.
#plasticarchaeology

Scandal alert! The money for sewerage works is being directed by Department for Infrastructure for NEW roads.

Homes cant now be built. Our loughs, rivers and coastline will be poisoned even more.

Unconscionable!

Feargal Sharkey watershed_investigations
Northern Ireland Water NI Audit Office

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northe…

📢Exciting! Later this week Irish Semi-natural Grasslands, w National Parks and Wildlife Service colleagues & more, will be launching something exciting relating to #GreatIrishGrasslands & the #GrasslandsTrail

🎉Watch this space!

Phoebe O'Brien All-Ireland Pollinator Plan NPWS Nature Conservation Oonagh Duggan Donna Rainey Glengarriff Woods NR

Ah the romance of releasing balloons, what a way to show how much you care 🙄 This one arrived on the island just over a week ago, about a month after Valentine's Day #WashedUpOnRathlin #balloonsblow #2minutebeachclean

I’m seeing this viral photo popping up all over the place at the moment. It drives me nuts because it’s usually peddled as a green solution that’s beneficial for wildlife.

Firstly, these aren’t “wildflowers”. They’re not even flowers that are native to the UK. There are very few…

Every now and again the ocean throws back all the debris it doesn't want. Here are some of the many hundreds of items we have picked up in recent days. This is waste that doesn't float, litter that has been lying on the ocean floor, in some cases for decades. Textiles, tents,…

Natural history collections are important educational tools to help us understand biodiversity. The School of Biological Sciences Queen's University Belfast 🎓 Collection is 150+ yrs old, inspiring generations of students. An amazing UG student has created a digital tour of the collection

thinglink.com/card/181981256…

🎉 The 2023 Rathlin Bird Report is here- what a year!
It's another bumper issue covering all 163 species seen, 4 new additions, an unprecedented eagle extravaganza, PLUS a special section on population estimates for all the island's breeding species 🤓
rathlinstickybeak.wordpress.com/2024/03/12/rat…

UK citizen science request: Woodland Trust🌳 is asking for help recording first Hawthorn flower, Horse Chestnut flower, Swallow & Orange-Tip Butterfly etc.
Part of a 300 yr-old phenological tradition.
Details of how to participate here: naturescalendar.woodlandtrust.org.uk
Pls share, sign up.

Thanks to the 12 beachcleaners who attended a soggy Seapark 2nd Sunday Beach Clean this morning. Great to see some new faces and to have our Live Here Love Here Field Officer Zara Hamilton attend. 25kgs of litter & waste lifted. #BigSpringClean #liveherelovehere #leavenotrace