Wild Mosaic

Wild Mosaic Journey into wildness, bring life back to land.

When we think about land and wildlife, we often seem to get things backwards. It’s easier to make money destroying life ...
19/06/2026

When we think about land and wildlife, we often seem to get things backwards.

It’s easier to make money destroying life than it is restoring it. Reflected by the stark fact that for every £1 invested in restoring our natural world, £30 is spent destroying it.

There’s an argument that says what drives this is our perceived separation from nature. But this doesn’t account for how so many environmentally damaging actions - like hunting beavers to extinction for their fur, meat, and castoreum, or prosecuting organisers of a well meaning river clean up - make little to no sense.

What if it’s less about feeling separate, and more about our desire to feel in control?

Pearl-bordered fritillaries, common blues, broad-bodied chasers, and the season’s first damselflies. Here’s what we foun...
17/06/2026

Pearl-bordered fritillaries, common blues, broad-bodied chasers, and the season’s first damselflies. Here’s what we found on the Wild Mosaic in Wilder Pentwyn in June… 🦋

Slide 2: Pearl-bordered fritillary, spotted on ///raking.rigs.clutches. This butterfly needs violets to breed and bracken litter to bask on, which is why its presence is a strong signal of recently disturbed or lightly managed ground.

Slide 3 & 4: Common blue, spotted on ///hurtles.disputes.fish and ///stag.steadier.renewals. The common blue’s caterpillars feed almost exclusively on bird’s foot trefoil

Slide 5: Brown silver-line moth seen on ///briefing.guitar.pioneered. Again, another confirmation of bracken habitat

Slide 6 & 7: Broad-bodied chasers, spotted on ///grove.reply.redeeming and ///remaining.riskiest.hacksaw — the males are unmistakable with a flattened, powder-blue abdomen

Slide 8: Green-veined white, spotted on ///stag.steadier.renewals

Slide 9: Ctenifera cuprea, spotted on ///cannine.composts.home: a click beetle whose larvae spend years underground in old, undisturbed grassland roots

Slide 10: Large red damselfly, spotted on ///comb.facelift.necklaces - among the earliest damselflies to emerge each spring

Slide 11: Azure damselfly, spotted on ///taller.hotspots.comical

What life are you noticing around you? To see more updates like this, follow Wild Mosaic 🌱 | Rewilding tile by tile and adopt a tile today 🌱

Come and get creative with and 🌱Evening of Tuesday 23 June, we’ll be playing with ideas on how we think about land an...
04/06/2026

Come and get creative with and 🌱

Evening of Tuesday 23 June, we’ll be playing with ideas on how we think about land and wildness. While 83% of people in the UK support rewilding, less than 1% of our island is being reclaimed and restored through rewilding.

Let’s change that.

A year of the painted lady? The most amazing butterfly migration is the Monarch… 🦋
03/06/2026

A year of the painted lady? The most amazing butterfly migration is the Monarch… 🦋

01/06/2026

The River Wye and its attachment area has become the first UK river to gain charter rights. 🎉

As I’m standing in the tile of beside the river Lugg that flows into the River Wye on the wild mosaic in Wilder Pentwyn, I’m reminded of the entanglement of all of us.

Jannine is heavily involved in the Voice of Nature movement, and as this gains more and more traction, I feel like I’m standing with Jannine, with the river, and with all the life that depends upon it.

TILE & ME: Introducing Jannine Barron 🌳 “Wildness is with me always. Every day with the moon, my garden, my walks, my wo...
29/05/2026

TILE & ME: Introducing Jannine Barron 🌳

“Wildness is with me always. Every day with the moon, my garden, my walks, my work. All my decisions and choices. Everything.”

“[Adopting a Wild Mosaic tile] was an instant, wholehearted yes. An empowering choice and inner knowing that this was an affordable, easy way that Jon had created for me to contribute and engage with rewilding with immediate and important impact.”

Tiles: chief.soft.freely, providing.imported.health, and a leans.round.bookmark (bought as a gift)
Locations: Wilder Pentwyn, Wales

If you, like Jannine, want a way to engage with Rewilding and have immediate impact, head to the link in our bio to adopt a 3x3m tile in our very first Wilder Pentwyn site.

This Tile & Me series is a celebration of the incredible people that have joined the Wild Mosaic already, each one supporting the return of wildness to the land. If we can show that the collective can bring life back to depleted land, we can begin to do this at even larger scales.

Yesterday was World Bee Day (20th May) 🐝 And from the bee-fly in the cuckoo flower on ///raking.rigs.clutches, there are...
21/05/2026

Yesterday was World Bee Day (20th May) 🐝

And from the bee-fly in the cuckoo flower on ///raking.rigs.clutches, there are so many invertebrates that are less glamorous but equally worthy of PR…

Take the less glamorous tapered drone fly, spotted on ///mainland.spoil.skate! A sign of the shift into spring and one of the earliest hoverflies to emerge, attracted to the lesser celandines that are the first flowers to pop up across the site.

Or the marmalade hover fly, named after the thick cut and thin cut marmalade stripes. Next up comes the footballer, a hoverfly of many names, and the angle shade moth — that camouflages beautifully by crumpled ferns.

Earlier in the month, the site swarmed with the St Marks fly or hawthorn fly. They fly for just a week around the 24th April, using day length rather than temperature as their signal to emerge.

All these insects make up the wildness of life in the UK. And discovering them onsite, by hand and often just luck, is one of the greatest joys of watching this place’s return to wildness.

What insects are deserving of a marketing day (or year)?

Peacocks in hilltop corner, bee-flies in cuckoo flowers, comma butterflies, thistle tortoise beetles, and the thousandth...
14/05/2026

Peacocks in hilltop corner, bee-flies in cuckoo flowers, comma butterflies, thistle tortoise beetles, and the thousandth species to be recorded on the rewilding site 🎉

Here’s what we found on the Wild Mosaic in May…

🦚🦋 Slide 2: Peacock in hilltop corner, spotted on //prowl.faced.vocab and //ranks.never.spouse

Peacock butterflies have been surprisingly rare across the site and for a peculiar reason. Their caterpillars feed on nettles that usually thrive beside areas of human habitation. So, if ever you are lost in deep wilderness, seeing a peacock butterfly might give you hope that civilisation is closer than you might think…

🪲 Slide 3: Spotted lacehopper, species #1,000 recorded on //connects.gong.trendy

This spotted lacehopper is a new recorded species to the site. Species number 1000!

This has almost certainly been present before and in fact, most new sightings are like this. They are relatively common, yet small and difficult to see unless you are paying close attention.

Identifying these species is the foundation of understanding biodiversity on the site.

🪰 Slide 4: St. Mark’s fly, spotted on //physical.mermaids.deny

The St. Mark’s fly flies for just a week and is named after Saint Mark’s Day on the 24th of April. These showed up right on time between the 24th and 25th of April.

🐝 Slide 5: Bee-fly in a cuckoo flower on //raking.rigs.clutches

🦋 Slide 6: Comma butterfly spotted on //glossed.curry.knee

You can easily identify the comma butterfly by its distinctive jagged wing edges.

This butterfly is one of a handful of UK species that hibernate over winter and hides in leaf litter — which is why it looks a little like an old leaf when its wings are closed.

🐢🪲 Slide 7: Thistle tortoise beetle spotted on //skillet.inversion.limit

Finally, the thistle tortoise beetle: part of the leaf beetle family.

What life are you noticing around you?

To see more updates like this, follow and adopt a tile today 🌱

“[God] had an inordinate fondness for beetles.”One of my favourite naturalist quotes is from British evolutionary biolog...
14/05/2026

“[God] had an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

One of my favourite naturalist quotes is from British evolutionary biologist and geneticist, H.B.S. Haldane. The story goes that he was asked by a group of theologists about wha he would conclude about creation based on his study of biology.

Beetles were his reply, and he had a point!

There are so far around 400,000 beetle species that we know of. This thistle tortoise beetle (spotted on //skillet.inversion.limit in the Wilder Pentwyn site) is one of 60,000 species in the leaf beetle group.

The tortoise beetles have this shape so they can defend themselves against ants and other creatures that might try to attack them from underneath. They are also camouflaged and cast little shadows so are less visible to predators hunting from above.

For more tile updates like this, sign up either to the substack (link in bio) or head on over to wildmosaic.eco to adopt your very own tile of wildness!

TILE & ME: Introducing Katie Skelton 🦆 “Wildness means space to breathe. I find myself not breathing properly a lot of ...
08/05/2026

TILE & ME: Introducing Katie Skelton 🦆

“Wildness means space to breathe. I find myself not breathing properly a lot of the time and finding myself somewhere wild and unplugged brings me back.”

“I like to find ways to do things differently and more intimately than “mainstream” donations to tree planting etc. Wild Mosaic felt like it was close enough to home to feel tangible, small enough to feel personal and different enough to feel like I’m part of a community and a story rather than just throwing money at something I can’t really imagine or see.”

Tile: ducks.buying.calls
Location: Marsh into Lugg, in the RWT Pentwyn project

If you, like Katie, love the wild and want to get involved in bringing life and connection back to yourself and the UK, head to the link in our bio to adopt a 3x3m tile in the Wilder Pentwyn site.

This Tile & Me series is a celebration of the incredible people that have joined the Wild Mosaic, each one supporting the return of wildness to the land.

DM or click the link in our bio to learn more.

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