Subversion, sabotage and spying: Political policing and state racism in the UK

This was the title of the extraordinary conference I attended at South Bank Uni in early April. Over 2 days speaker after speaker spoke about appalling cases of racism, subversion, dishonesty, criminality and violence by the…

It was wonderful to find my old friend Inonotus dryadeus (also known as Oak Bracket) back in Clissold on Monday. Calling a bracket fungus a friend may seem a bit weird but having not seen this amber beauty for 8 years it was joyous to rediscover it on the same veteran plum tree where it fruited in 2008. Surely knowing an organism as beautiful as this for 8…

I Tweeted (@treeruss) the above photo to advertise yesterday's bee walk and it happens to feature the first bee we saw.  This is a male Hairy Yellow-Face bee Hylaeus hylinatus. It's tiny, less than 6mm! Yesterday's male was a bit dozy, presumably due to the cold weather. It soon warmed up in the glass tube I used to show if to the assembled bee…