Plenty of Cuckoo action at Red Moss of Netherley this morning. 4 birds including this shifty-looking female, surveying the Mipits quietly.

The art world was shocked today by a new analysis of John Constable's iconic painting 'The Hay Wain'. Confocal X-ray imaging of the canvas revealed that Constable originally intended to portray the mill pond populated by cute little ghosts. #art #thehaywain

I too would risk it all for a landfill seedsnipe. Peak birding. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Found a long-dead Little Auk behind the dunes today. One from winter wrecks. A6 notebook for scale. #HolyIsland

Black Guillemots off the Heugh, Holy Island, this evening

Behold! My beautiful genotyping PCRs. So clean. Many beauty. Much science.

An old fashioned used-to-be Mealy/Common Redpoll in the garden today. Digi-binned.

In Llandudno hotels you have to pay the bill by passing biscuits through the window to the rent collectors.

I've never seen one before, but presume this monster is Queen of the Tree Bumblebee people. Found on our kitchen floor.

Friday on the Great Orme, Llandudno. Sheep and Chough

Puffin offshore today!

Black Redstart poops from 'eastern' birds from Spurn (Nov 25) and Sheringham (Dec 25) have cytb sequences that clade with birds from west/central China and from Tyva (Russia). Distinct from western DNA. Consistent with subspp phoenicuroides/murinus. @birdguides.bsky.social 1/2

A Pochard at the other side (can you tell) or Loirston Loch was a very handy 10K radius year tick. Ring-necked Duck still here.

They say they'll stay there "for days if we have to." protectthewild.substack.com/p/breaking-a...

Still tidying. Behold school exercise book from age 13. Religious education - 40 pages of blood-curdling military history

Rearranging bookshelves. Found 20s year-old Martin's pen drawings of rarities what I saw. 1990 Holkham Red-breasted Nuthatch, 1991 Waxham Lark Sparrow, and 1991 St Andrews Chimney Swift. #birding

From Facebook. Looks like a Golden Eagle on Holy Island yesterday. #birding

We interrupt Bluesky to bring you this important message from the Disasters Emergency Committee #lufc #mot #thfc #coys

Full fat patch tick today when a Water Rail broke cover and ran across the reeds at Newtonhill Mill. #patchbirding

Ring-necked Duck still at Loirston Loch. Very handsome. And an arty pic of Slav Grebe at Inchgarth

Tanks on @inchgarthbirding.bsky.social 's lawn! Slavonian Grebe - pretty certain this is a 10K radius patch tick.

A dead Redpoll in the garden. Much sadness. Breast bone was like a knife.

The weather remains bleak but views of Ring-necked Duck get better at Loirston Loch. A Shag too.

the "medieval people didn't know how to draw animals" crowd has been real quiet ever since john siferwas dropped the Perfect Woodcock

Not much better but weather not really conducive to photography! 3rd for Loirston (last in 2005). Different bird to the one at Forfar which was still being reported today #birdingscotland

Prepare for Bird Photograph of the Year - found this male Ring-necked Duck having a kip at Loirston Loch. #patchbirding

Patches birding. Looking for Jack Snipes. Turns out John Millais had beaten me to it.

Regular as clockwork, a few days of snow cover and Bramblings start turning up in the garden 🤍🖤🧡

Christmas Robin, 21st century birding style.

The fragment of ND2 DNA that @tessaroo.bsky.social got from Calshot GT Grackle doesn't tell exactly where it came from but it excludes a USA west coast (nelsoni) origin and puts it in the Panama-Central-USA populations. Orange shape overlaid on map from DaCosta et al., 2008 doi.org/10.1525/cond...

Short news piece on the Challenger expedition and the Band-rumped fiesta: britishbirds.co.uk/news/band-ru... #RareBirdsUK

The latest report from the RBBP, Rare Breeding Birds in the UK in 2023, is out now in British Birds. It reports on the 104 species and races of rare breeding birds recording breeding, or showing signs of breeding, in 2023. Read the summary at rbbp.org.uk/2023-report-... #ornithology #ukbirds 🧵[1/15]

Ooh, poop sample from the grackle from Calshot, Hampshire, Nov 25, shows it was Great-tailed, not Boat-tailed as thought. Analysis by @tessaroo.bsky.social poop by @wjrpb.bsky.social @birdguides.bsky.social

Some policy analysis about VAT on private school fees, why it is set to raise more than originally forecast, and why this matters. Please read, share, and subscribe for more! open.substack.com/pub/barrybla...

The moment an Israeli missile hit a tent in Gaza was caught on camera when a Palestinian girl filmed herself showing her hair clips.

First preprint from my PhD is out! If molluscan developmental biology and genetics, gene-editing methodology in non-traditional model systems, or the function and conservation of pax6 interests you, please give it a read! 🐚🎉

Must be my latest Sooth Shearwater ever, south at Newtonhill this afternoon.

Magnificent fully funded PhD position available with me, Rastko Sknepnek (Dundee) and Silke Henkes (Leiden) on epithelial cell migration. @physicsoflifeuk.bsky.social @bscb-official.bsky.social @epimechfc.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Fully funded EASTBIO PhD. Everyone should apply. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Lovely and sunny

Haha I'm in World's Top 2% Scientists. In your face, top 3% topscinet.com/scientist_pr...

Labbie Tess @tessaroo.bsky.social is on a poop collecting mission. For science.

Orange Peel Fungus Aleuria aurantia.

Both the Red-spotted and White-spotted races of Bluethroat try to breed in the UK occasionally but breeding has only been confirmed on five occasions, in 1968, 85, 95, 2016 (Red-spotted) and 1996 (White-spotted). There were single possible breeding records of both in 2023 #ukbirding #ornithology

Another species returning to breed in 2023 was Temminck's Stint; a pair laid a clutch of four eggs in Highland, although the nest was later flooded out. This tiny wader bred regularly in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, but this was the first confirmed breeding since 1997 #ornithology #BirdingScotland

In @elife.bsky.social: Sox9 prevents retinal degeneration and is required for limbal stem cell differentiation in the adult mouse eye doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Coming through! Important ptarmigan stuff to do! #birds 🌿

It's happening #fieldsofthenephilim