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Spring Delights In Upper Teesdale
A round up of a fabulous two days spent exploring the special flora of Upper Teesdale
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Urban Gems: Where to Enjoy Wildlife In Newcastle
To help inspire your next urban walk, enjoy a curated list of ten of the best places to enjoy wildlife in Newcastle.
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Identifying 25 Common Grasses
Get started identifying a range of widespread yellow composites in a new simplified crib covering most common species.
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Urban Flora of Newcastle – 2024 so far
A short progress report on going efforts to survey the urban flora of Newcastle and neighboring parts of North Tyneside.
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Early Dog-violets in North Tyneside
A surprising find and local success story with the discovery of two Early Dog-violet populations in North Tyneside.
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Identifying Yellow Composite Flowers
Get started identifying a range of widespread yellow composites in a new simplified crib covering most common species.
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 a major passion of mine, and whether it’s ferns, snowdrops, grasses, ancient woodland plants, or even humble pavement weeds, I spend much of my spare time seeking out and learning about our remarkable wild flora.
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.
Coming Soon: An Urban Flora of Newcastle
For the last few years, I’ve been working on what I hope will soon become the first ‘urban flora’ covering Newcastle and North Tyneside. With surveying complete, and writing well underway, the finished book should come to fruitition very soon. Until then, a few updates can be found below.
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.
Contact
Please use the adjacent form to get in touch if you have any queries about plants, places or content mentioned on this blog. Enquiries about talks, training opportunities or media are also most welcome.
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