Good week. Sixty records, twenty different species, and **173 new people joined**.

**Blackberry** ran away with it. Twenty-four records, more than double the week before, and two fifths of everything logged. Elderberry tripled, from two to six. Rosebay willowherb went from one to five. Bilberries appeared three times after being absent entirely last week.

Underneath that, autumn started. The first hawthorn berries in our records, the first rose hips, and damsons and hazel both ticking up. Small numbers on their own, but together they show the hedgerow turning over.

Two fungi as well; a dryad's saddle and a chicken of the woods. I expect that number to look very silly in a month.

Fifteen milestones recorded across the week. Nine people logged their **first ever forage**. Two logged their first herb. Two recorded their first observation, which accounted for both observations that came in this week. One person recorded their first fungi and one their first flower.

Forty-seven people who'd used the app before came back this week, which is quietly the number I care about most.

Records came in from England, Scotland and Wales. Still waiting on the first from Northern Ireland; if you're over there, you could be it!

Everything logged this week, most to least: blackberry, elderberry, rosebay willowherb, apples, bilberries, damson plum, hazel, hawthorn berries, meadowsweet, cherry plum, dryad's saddle, rose hip, chicken of the woods, elderflower, wild garlic, pears, rugosa rose, common mallow, dog rose.

Weekly forage roundup — 27 July to 2 August