Prof Penny Endersby

@pennyend

CBE FREng. Chief Executive of the Met Office. Weather, climate, physics, digital & data, with a scatter of wildlife, Dartmoor, old churches and choral music

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Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· 6d

Sneezewort, bacon and eggs (birds foot trefoil) and surprisingly Goji berry (Chinese boxthorn) for #WildflowerHour #CommonNames from Anglesey @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

White flowers with grey centres (sneezewort)

Red and yellow pea shaped flowers of birds foot trefoil

Purple flowers like nightshade and the long red goji berries

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· 6d

Very moving to see the Royal Charter memorial at Moelfre. This tragic shipwreck with 460 lives lost inspired @metoffice.gov.uk founder Admiral Fitzroy to begin the storm warning service which later grew into the Shipping Forecast

The memorial to the Royal Charter in Welsh and English on a bronze scale plinth with the Royal modern RNlI building behind

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· 28d

Beautiful skies over Burgh Island this morning.

A photo of two halves. Down the middle is the causeway to Burgh Island at low tide with sea both sides. The two white buildings on the island are the hotel, left and pilchard inn, right. The sky has what looks like a dividing line of cloud down the middle all lined up with the low summit of the island. Scrubby dune plants in foreground

Looking out of the square stone window of the huer’s hut on the top of Burgh Island. Turquoise bay and seaside resort beyond. The hut was built on the site of a chapel to St Michael, to look out for pilchard shoals and was used as a lookout in WW2

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jul 19

Often I feel I’m in the wrong place for the @wildflowerhour.bsky.social challenge. But if you want to find things #StillFlowering when the land is parched, #Dartmoor is the place for you. Most of these 38 came from one lane from Cornwood up towards Dendle’s Wood. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

A collage of ten purple flowers: Bramble, tufted vetch, knapweed, spear thistle, hemp agrimony, creeping thistle, great willowherb, red campion, foxglove, marsh thistle

A collage of ten mostly white flowers: hedge bindweed, cow parsley, meadowsweet, traveller’s joy, enchanter’s nightshade, wood sage, honeysuckle, hogweed, valerian, soft rush

A collage of nine yellow flowers: bird’s foot trefoil, smooth sow thistle, cat’s ear, nipplewort, goldenrod, wood avens, creeping buttercup, tormentil, western gorse. The European gorse was not #stillflowering

A collage of nine leftover flowers: pheasant berry, ivy-leaved toadflax, montbresia, herb Robert, hedge woundwort, cross leaved heath, sheep’s sorrel, ling, stinging nettle

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jul 18

I forgot to post my simplestem bur-reed for #wildflowerhour #aquaticplants but it was growing at Man Sands at the back of the beach

A complicated flower with spiky florets, some covered in pollen, and a string of brown beads among reed leaves

A different view with better view of the brown beads

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jul 9

Great to hear Lord Vallance at the launch of the National Research Organisations. Over 40 government-funded scientific bodies with a mission to maximise the value of our science in support of government’s priorities & ensure that all of government can access this treasure trove of expertise & data.

Lord Vallance, science minister in front of the banner with logos of participating organisations

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jul 5

Even in the drought the dune slacks at Dawlish Warren were stunning. Hundreds of marsh helleborine and a gorgeous sea of loosestrife and meadowsweet. The chicory was from nearby. @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @warrenbirding.bsky.social

A wide view of the meadowsweet and loosestrife with dunes and sky behind and close ups of the helleborines and chicory

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jul 5

#Climbingplants for @wildflowerhour.bsky.social challenge. Hedge bindweed, woody nightshade and black bryony which fooled me. I thought I had a flower but I think that’s a bramble peeping through. Devon lanes. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jun 25

The UK June record was duly broken yesterday with 36.1C at Gosport, and it will fall again today. This spell also features high humidity and overnight temperatures. My husband commented with surprise on the dewy grass when he took his breakfast out. Very unusual to have dew points widely over 20C.

A close up of grass and clover leaves with dew drops caught on tendrils

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jun 23

I am old enough to remember how extraordinary the 1976 heatwave felt. On the hottest weekend I wore that green velour top and long skirt to a party (the photo is from Feb 76). Fifty years on and a similar event would show much higher temperatures. We expect the record from that June to fall tomorrow

Ten small girls in party finery in a suburban garden. I am third from right in a green top and long frilly skirt

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jun 14

Devon has amazing #ChurchyardFlowers. These at Exeter Cathedral are probably a meadow mix but much nicer than the patchy turf and builders’ yard which preceded them. The Close is mainly public turf, so any little bit of wild area is a blessing. @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

A sunlit sea of ox eye daisies in front of a stone building with mullioned windows. Also knapweed, poppy, foxglove, wild carrot, hawkweed, mallow and dandelion.

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jun 9

I photographed these three, at least two in your thread, because they were all different shapes in the same stretch of wall in Buckland in the moor

Pointy cream door, battered arched turquoise door and brown oblong door in stone wall

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jun 7

#LawnFlowers for #WildflowerHour and nearly all with #PollinatorPals just to show why #NoMowMay is helpful. The thick-legged flower beetle on the corky-fruited water dropwort is a great name combo 🪲 @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

A hawkbit with a small bee (better IDs welcome), yellow rattle, poppy with buff-tailed bumble, corky fruited water dropwort with thick legged flower beetle and cats ear and nipplewort with hoverflies

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jun 3

Feeling chilly after the end of the heatwave? Always worth a look at “Is the UK hot right now?” This is pretty typical nationwide for early June from the most recent 30 year average ending 2020. Every decade we update the average and it gets warmer each time.

A map of the UK with deviations from the average temperature and a caption “NO - it’s fairly typical “. Average (median) difference from normal -0.7C
The circles are mostly white: they would be red or blue for large positive or negative numbers

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Jun 1

It looked for a while as though May might be an increasingly unusual cooler than average month, until the recent heat pulled it to the third warmest May on record for the UK. Details of all of Spring across the UK in the blog below

A chart of daily temperature variances from average during May 2026, showing a stretch of blue below average through to the 19th and then a surge of orange peaking at May’s record highest on 26th

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 29

This one from St Tetha’s ( St Teath) needed a little TLC though

The bowl of a Norman font with a stray pinnacle in it and a label explaining it had been rescued from the vicarage garden

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 29

A full house of Norman #FontsOnFriday from St Peter’s Buckland, St Breward, St Tudy and St Materiana’s Tintagel.

An ornate round font with circular decorations on the base and palmate ones above. Wooden cover with arrangement of Aliums and gladioli

An interesting font with a square bowl tapering upwards to a round basin. It would have had pillars like the next two

A square font on a central fat column and four slender corner columns. Blind arcading decoration. Tomb behind with kneeling husband and wife in Tudor dress

Round bowl with primitive heads at the corners with central column and slim octagonal corner columns

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 26

With temperatures for a hot summer’s day while we’re still in Spring I felt for the sheep which have not yet been sheared. But they were acting in line with @metoffice.gov.uk advice to stay in shade and avoid vigorous exercise.

A dry stone wall casting a shadow with sheep and lambs pressed up against it out of the sun. Open moorland behind

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 24

Also for #WildflowerHour some highlights from the hay meadows at Pudsham, maintained by the #Dartmoor preservation association. Heath spotted orchid from the dry meadow, southern marsh orchid from the wet one and clouds of sanicle in the lane @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

A pale pink spotty orchid in a green meadow

The small white bobbly flowers of sanicle in unusual profusion

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 24

Bogbean with a supporting cast of marsh lousewort and bog cotton putting on a #WildflowerShow in a #Dartmoor valley mire for #WildflowerHour. I like this take on Chelsea week . @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

A sea of frilly bogbean and lime green leaves overseen by a tuft of fluffy bog cotton

A group of marsh lousewort in foreground, bogbean behind and bog cotton leaning in from left

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 23

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together. #WildflowerShow #Dartmoor @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

An old hedgerow hawthorn against a blue sky. Covered in pink blossom and greygreen beards of lichen

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 18

It isn’t #wildflowerhour and it’s the wrong week for #HedgerowChallenge but all these were in just a mile or so of flowery #Dartmoor Lane near Ilsington. Plus the clapper over the Sig is so pretty. @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Sorrel, pink hawthorn, creeping buttercup, ivy-leaved toadflax, dog violet, dandelion, sweet violet, black bryony, honesty

Wood avens, wild garlic, garlic mustard, wild strawberry, pignut, foxglove, pennywort, germander speedwell, lesser celandines

Welsh poppy, pink purslane, red campion greater stitchwort, cow parsley, shining cranesbill, herb Robert, bluebell, green alkanet

A small broom with stony banks where it floods in a deciduous woodland with a path leading away middle left. A chunky single bar of granite makes a clapper bridge over the brook

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 10

Fields of marsh orchids and my first wild rose of 2026 from Dawlish Warren for #WildflowerHour. Most of the #CarrotsandPeas challenge came from there too, but the corky-fruited water dropwort was in my garden. @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @warrenbirding.bsky.social

A sea of sturdy pink marsh orchids in a sandy meadow

Corky fruited water dropwort, cow parsley, hemlock water dropwort, common vetch, pignut with bonus bluebells and Alexanders. Clockwise from top left

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 7

Bluebells near Hound Tor #Dartmoor at their absolute peak

A hazel coppice floored with bluebells with a mossy boulder boundary running diagonally bottom left to centre

A field of bluebells with standing rowan trees and a ridge of high ground behind

A river of bluebells between hawthorn trees

We saw some white ones which are meant to be 1/10000 but this is a close up of a pale blue and white stem which was unique

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 7

Only thin bell ringers can enter the bell tower at St Paul de Leon Staverton Devon. #AdoorableThursday

A slim door with a pointed arched top in a stone wall with two steps up. Wooden chair to the left is only just narrower than the door

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 3

For #WildflowerHour welsh poppy , sanicle, yellow pimpernel, pignut and double flowered cuckoo flower. Plus bulbous and creeping buttercup for #buttercupchallenge. From the Dart Valley @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

A collage with the orange Welsh poppy growing straight out of a stone wall and pignut nestled below bluebells . Cuckoo flower flora pleno in the middle

Several bulbous buttercups with their reflex sepals (and a storksbill)

Creeping buttercup with large broad lobed leaves

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· May 2

#MorningWalk ahead of the rain. Mill, bridge and holloway near Staverton, Devon.

An old stone bridge covered in Erigeron flowers. Crossing the wide dark river Dart. Green trees on opposite bank partially obscuring a large stone mill, four storeys high with dormer windows and slate roof

A stony lane between 4m high banks covered in pink and blue flowers. Leading downhill to a distant white farmhouse

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Apr 26

A cracking week for #WildflowerHour. Hawthorn and archangel for #HedgerowChallenge and green-winged orchid, star of Bethlehem and burrowing clover from the meadows of South Devon. @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Apr 26

Assume you’ve seen this?

Four panel cartoon of crows distinguishing a scarecrow from a human because it isn’t looking at a mobile phone

Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend· Apr 12

Four from the North Devon coast path this week. Erodium from the dunes, a combination of gorse, sea campion and sweet violet from the cliffs, thrift from the shingle and wood sorrel as my contribution to #WoodlandPlants. #WildflowerHour @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social