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Murderous blackbirds, a forlorn pheasant, jellydisks in the wood pile and a bibble-bug in the bath
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 • Phil Gates
Moss teeth, pepper pots and pop-guns
Something rather uplifting happens on these dismal, wet, grey late winter days.
 • Phil Gates
A tablecloth of lichens, sinister jelly, a golden alga and Beatrix Potter the mycologist
A cock chaffinch, in fine breeding plumage, in the hawthorn outside my window this week.
 • Phil Gates
A year in the life of a magpie
Last week the discordant cackling of magpies Pica pica, in the hawthorn outside the bedroom window, announced that this pair – ‘two for joy’, according…
 • Phil Gates
Lichens in the fog, a toadstool moving south, a woodpecker with a vice, the curse of the black spot - and siskins galore!
In a dank week of foggy mornings, drizzle and grey skies, its was hard to leave the warmth and comfort of home but there were rewards from walking in…
 • Phil Gates
Witches' brooms, fencepost fungi, mugged by mallards, a hunter in the snow, Methodist jackdaws and ant hill mosses
Birch witches brooms - twiggy galls usually caused by the fungus Taphrina betulina - in St.
 • Phil Gates
A wild flower for all seasons
Last summer’s carline thistles Carlina vulgaris retain their shape and some of their colour throughout winter, even after burial in snow.
 • Phil Gates
Phil’s Substack
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