Contact

One address, read by the person who writes the notes: [email protected].

What to write about

• A correction. A species identified wrongly, a coordinate that lands in the wrong field, a phenophase that does not match the photograph or the date. Tell us the note's address and what you think it should say.
• A place question. If you know a site mentioned here, and the access rules have changed — a gate locked, a trail rerouted, a permit now required — that is worth knowing before the next visit.
• A comparison. If you keep your own dated notes for the same species, send the first-flowering or first-call date with the location. The most useful messages this journal gets are other people's dates.
• Permission. Quoting a note in a class, a newsletter or a field guide is fine with a link back. Translating a whole note, or reprinting several, needs a note from you first.
• Something broken. A figure that will not draw, a table that collapses on a phone, a link that has rotted. The browser and device help.

What we cannot do

We cannot identify a species from a photograph with any authority — a picture without a date, a place and a habitat is missing the parts that decide most identifications. We cannot give land-access advice for sites we do not manage, and we cannot tell you whether a mushroom is edible. Messages about foraging safety get the same answer every time: take it to a mycologist and a local expert, not to a website.

Response time

Corrections are usually dealt with within a few days, and the note is updated rather than merely acknowledged. Other messages may take longer, particularly during the field season. If a message needs no reply, none will come — that is not rudeness, it is a notebook with one person behind it.

How your message is handled

Emailing us shares your address with us and nobody else. We do not run a mailing list, we do not pass addresses to advertisers, and we delete threads once the correction is made. The details are in the privacy policy.

Practical note

Photographs are welcome but not required — a date, a place and a description of what the plant or animal was doing is more useful than a picture without them. If you do send a photograph, say whether we may publish it alongside the note; if you do not say, we will assume we may not.

Write to us: [email protected]