If you’re still on X because you think it’s “where the conversation is”, it isn’t. Ofcom’s Online Nation Report 2025 shows X is no longer a mainstream platform in the UK. Fewer people use it, engagement is tiny, and harm is concentrated. 🔗 tinyurl.com/OfcomON 🧵Here's what the data says ...

Get ready for Phase Two: a raid on Oslo to seize the Peace Prize.

Like Greenland.

Donny, you're out of your element.

New Year, new book project. @martamaziarz.bsky.social & I are writing a new Poyser monograph for @chiffchat.bsky.social on everyone's favourite forest songster: the Wood Warbler. Decades of long-term studies from across Europe, including our own in Białowieża Forest. #NatureWriting #Ornithology

The Russian war on grebes...

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

New Year, new book project. @martamaziarz.bsky.social & I are writing a new Poyser monograph for @chiffchat.bsky.social on everyone's favourite forest songster: the Wood Warbler. Decades of long-term studies from across Europe, including our own in Białowieża Forest. #NatureWriting #Ornithology

2025 was the warmest year on record for Central England in a dataset that starts in 1659. (Daily data available since 1772.) www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadce...

Isle of May avian ecologist #job #seabirds - come join our team, we’d love to chat if you have questions, please just get in touch ⬇️

This was the Feldman Eco-park in Ukraine, which hosts facilities for bat researchers & rehabbers from Kharkiv University. No military targets, just deliberate murderous destruction by Putin's Russia. Park was recovering after being attacked & occupied in 2022, when Russians murdered two zookeepers.

Ending the year on a small photo high - got out of the car and saw a Woodcock coming our way in beautiful light - brain eye camera coordination initially failed but clicked into gear in time for a few nice images to end 2025

New Year, new job. Come and join the @ukceh.bsky.social team on the Isle of May ceh.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/CEH_Ca...

Quite how shore nets like these are legal is beyond me. Two turnstones were trapped this morning at Rhos Point. I untangled both and they were able to fly off unharmed before being drowned by the rising tide.

🐧🧊 Incredible underwater footage of penguin life, shot from the first person of one of them. 🇺🇦 This beauty was captured thanks to Ukrainian scientists from the Vernadsky Station in Antarctica, who put a GPS tracker and a tiny camera on the bird.

Britain is facing renewed pressure from the White House to allow American chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated meat into UK supermarkets, as Donald Trump seeks trade concessions in exchange for reviving a collapsed US-UK technology deal. and so it begins www.farminguk.com/news/chlorin...

Britons living in rural areas support banning trail hunting by 50% to 35% Most rural Britons say hunting has little to no importance to rural communities socially (51%) or economically (58%) yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

Russia continues damaging Ukrainian environment. The Russians damaged a tank containing sunflower oil, causing it to spill into the estuary and then into the sea. Birds affected by the oil spill were taken to the Odesa Zoo for rehabilitation. 📹DW

Discover the curiosities of birds and their world 🐦 Each issue of BTO News is packed with interesting articles - all exclusively for BTO members! Not a member? Join today from just £3 month and you'll get BTO News four times a year, plus other exclusive member benefits ➡️ www.bto.org/support-us/j...

another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls

New in #BirdStudy Breeding success of the Black-necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis varies between gull and tern colonies doi.org/10.1080/0006... #ornithology

Above: Moscow during the holidays. Below: Kyiv during the holidays. Different universes. Russia must pay for its war crimes.

New in #BirdStudy Breeding success of the Black-necked Grebe Podiceps nigricollis varies between gull and tern colonies doi.org/10.1080/0006... #ornithology

Transcribing interview with a great Parkinson’s scientist - love his advice to young researchers: “Pick your area, stick with it, and accept that at some point in your life it will be flavour of the month, and at some point in your career, it will be ’I can't believe you're still working on that’”

Aaaah, one of my very favourite pubs in the whole of Britain (and I've been in a fair few...). Always a decent pint of Tetleys, a very decent Haddock & Chips, and views to die for over the estuary from the window seats (waders & ducks/geese feeding or passing by outside).

Yikes, a Boxing Day Speckled Wood in Boscombe. The 2025 season will certainly break some records with flight periods! www.dorsetbutterflies.com/2025/12/spec...

The Peregrine on the left, shot and left suffering so badly that it had to be euthanised within a few months of leaving the nest. Peregrines aren't easy targets, so whoever shot it was experienced at shooting at birds and knew what they were doing. The usual suspects.

As I wrote for @agendapublica.es last week: “A third way that the US government could seek to advance its agenda within Europe would be to target the officials involved in decisions it dislikes” agendapublica.es/noticia/2047...

"The biologist believes beavers should not be reintroduced without a system to deal with conflicts that inevitably arise". Beavers have infrastructure impacts that need funding to manage (almost £1m/year in CH). Is anyone preparing for this in England as legal & illegal reintroductions roll out?

It's our last newsletter of 2025! Catch up with recent stories, including: 🤝New alliance of National Research Organisations 🌱Grassland toolkit for farmers 🔥Thoughts from COP30 ☀️Flash droughts forecasting and more! Read it here: https://f.mtr.cool/ppiobgrmcv 🧪

Three warbler species on the winter solstice in England and it's just pretty normal birding. That would have blown birders' minds back in the 1980s (my personal baseline). Nothing with bird distributions ever stays the same for long, and the older you get the more you realise it's always been so.

I hereby rescind this endorsement of Solognac wellies (available from Decathlon). Had a pair for years with no issues, but 2nd pair has just started splitting on the soles after just over a year of easy-moderate use and good care. Very disappointing for £70 and just out of warranty. #BirdingGear

A hard ban can't come soon enough. They've been acting like they're above the law since day 1.

This is long overdue. The hunters only have themselves to blame. Constant trespass, animal abuse and aggression towards those that just ask them to stay within the law. This has to stop. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In case you missed this... www.ywt.org.uk/news/derwent...

No paper from me or my lab will ever be submitted to an MDPI journal - including any of their superfluous "special issues". I will very rarely (if ever) cite MDPI papers. And I will never review for them. deevybee.blogspot.com/2024/08/gues... The same goes for FrontiersIn journals, among others.

It gets even more pathetic— x.com/RepBeatty/st...

Thank you so much for commissioning me, and the end result looks pretty good, doesn’t it? I’d love to do some more work like this.

As a small present to myself I commissioned the talented @katiefullerart.bsky.social to design an old-fashioned bookplate for me, for stamping my book collection. Very pleased with the result! Check out Katie's website too: www.katiefuller.co.uk #BirdArt #UKBirding #Birds

New in #BirdStudy Marsh Harriers & Buzzards were most abundant wintering raptors in Greek coastal wetlands, which are important areas for Greater Spotted Eagles. Factors affecting the abundance of wintering raptors in Mediterranean wetlands (Chiatante et al): doi.org/10.1080/0006... #ornithology

New in #BirdStudy Very few Hobbies have been tracked. In this study, two Hobbies were tracked over 10,000 km to Africa. Movements on the breeding grounds and during migration of female Eurasian Hobbies Falco subbuteo tracked with GPS loggers (Mirski et al): doi.org/10.1080/0006... #ornithology

New in #BirdStudy Refuelling strategies of migrating Sedge Warblers along the Atlantic flyway. Evaluation of the use of the Atlantic flyway in northern France and the Bay of Biscay by a reedbed specialist bird during the autumn migration (Musseau et al) doi.org/10.1080/0006... #ornithology

Just imagine what they do to all the other wildlife that aren't satellite tagged, and we never know about: Sparrowhawks, Peregrines, Tawny Owls, Pine Martens, Polecats, Otters...

Hard to imagine mainstream news trumpeting the killing of the biggest Red Deer of the year, or the heaviest Pink-footed Goose, largest Red Fox, or even the biggest Brown Trout. But championing the killing of marine wildlife for sport is just fine, totally normalised. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

If you're attending #BES2025, come and visit the UKCEH stand L3 and speak to the team from the National Capability for UK Challenges programme.

"The Trump administration is exporting its culture wars, and it is using the rhetoric of 'free speech' to extend to other countries the very same assault on democracy that is taking place within the United States." ✏️ @katherinestewart.bsky.social

#seabirds #ornithology

The English countryside in a nutshell.

Another Bialowieza throwback to spring. Very bad yr for Wood Warblers: low numbers, high predation. By contrast, Britain had 'good' yr. Seems linked to tree masting (eg. acorns). Theory suggests 2026 should be good in Bialowieza (no masting this autumn), but poor in Britain (as 2025 is a mast year).