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Winter walks in the city, by Frances Jones
I’ve been making a conscious effort, since January 1st, to notice nature in the grey bleakness of the city in winter. One morning last week,…
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New Nature Magazine – January edition
The latest edition of New Nature magazine is now live and can be downloaded and enjoyed (for free) here. It has been exactly two years…
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Adventures in Conservation, by Andrew Gorton
Moving to the North Norfolk coast from London in 2007, I realised how little I knew about the beautiful countryside I found myself in. Fortunately,…
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Another ‘wild’ year in retrospect
2018 has been a year of ups and downs; although, thankfully, mostly ups. The year marked by a great deal of personal and professional opportunities,…
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The Post Christmas Escape
Dawn broke overhead as I took my first, adrenaline-fueled steps into the reedbeds of Gosforth Park Nature Reserve, the grey-blue sky, a vestige of the…
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10 Tips for Nature Bloggers
I started this website as a place to express my interest in the natural world and to share sightings and photographs from my local ventures.…
Current Fascinations
By my own admission, I am prone to falling down rabbit holes from time to time. Typically, this involves deep-diving into a particular subject and learning as much as possible before, inevitably, another topic comes along to take its place. Regardless, below you’ll find my current areas of interest…
Botanical Bits
Botany is my main interest, and whether it’s ferns, snowdrops, grasses, ancient woodland plants, or even humble pavement weeds, I try to spend as much time as possible seeking out our wild plants.
North East Botany
Here you’ll find musings on plant identification, trip reports, sightings from walks and courses and just about anything else relating to botany in North East England.
Urban Flora of Newcastle and North Tyneside
The Urban Flora of Newcastle and North Tyneside is the first comprehensive account of the wild plants growing across the Newcastle and North Tyneside conurbation, one of the largest in the UK.
Based on six years of fieldwork, the book documents more than 1,120 native and naturalised plants -around a third of Britain’s entire flora.
Meet James
Born and raised in North East England, James is a botanist, general naturalist and biological recorder with a passion for sharing the joys of North East nature with others.
He currently works as Senior Naturalist for the Natural History Society of Northumbria (NHSN) and volunteers as a vice-county recorder for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI), both of which allow him to spend ample time outdoors leading trips, courses, surveys and guided walks.
