This article is honest about the downsides of Chinese dominance of solar infrastructure in South Africa but shows how cheap, reliable, green energy is rapidly replacing coal. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/c...

Santa brought me the new(ish) New Naturalist volume on 'Ponds, pools and puddles' by @jeremybiggs.bsky.social & Penny Williams. It's a whopping 614 pages and impressively broad in scope, starting out by explaining the natural origins of pond-like habitats. NHBS have it in their sale.

Climate-driven range contractions in species like Twite and Citril Finch can't be fixed by releases www.birdguides.com/news/citril-... #Ornithology ##UKBirding 🪶

The Trump administration have gutted science agencies, terminated research programmes and cancelled billions of dollars in grants to universities go.nature.com/4pMeAuU

A chilly sunset at Redcar.

"What promotes biodiversity often doesn't align with human perceptions of beauty and order": interesting 🧵on disturbance in grassland. Translate button at bottom of each post.

This book is available at the price of £25 with all funds going to the Friends of the #LDV and towards supporting conservation/research projects across the reserve 🐦🦆🪶 If you'd like to pre-order yourself a copy please contact [email protected], thank you @yorkbirding.bsky.social

Seeing this a lot: hedgerow and in-field trees coming to the end of their lives with no replacements being planted or allowed to regenerate. Combination of natural ageing (Enclosure period hedges now c. 250 yrs old), Ash Dieback & other stresses. Important biodiversity resource at risk.

New wellies day (Santa has come early 🎅) Christened them on x17 Jacks on part of a site that can hold 40+ #NEBirding

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...

Montado (a wood-pasture landscape) near Castro Verde, Baixo Alentejo, Portugal. This time last year.

Bydales 13:00; 39 Common Scoter, 2 Great Crested Grebes, 5 Red-throated Divers, a few Guillemots. @teesbirds.bsky.social

🧵Lists of protected animals (not birds) and plants in Great Britain are supposed to be reviewed every 5 years. JNCC has just published latest 'quinquennial review' (begun 2021!), recommending the addition of 107 animals & 203 plants with small numbers to be removed. jncc.gov.uk/resources/9a...

Biodiversity Net Gain is a bureaucratic monstrosity which imposes disproportionate costs on innocuous small developments. Most of that cost is fees to consultants & agents, often to achieve pitifully little. Despite kneejerk response from NGOs, removing BNG obligation on sites <0.2 is sensible.

In Reed Sweet-grass (Glyceria maxima) swamp, the monodominant grass produces a deep, putrid-smelling litter layer. Nonetheless, even at this time of year, it supports a teeming abundance of small fly larvae, springtails, money-spiders & rove beetles. Around 40 Snipe were in this patch today.

Viktor Orbán is a firm favourite with Reform UK. Farage says "Orbán is the future of Europe“. Increasingly, his own people know he is a wannabe dictator and Putin's puppet.

Richard's Pipit still at Cattersty, on clifftop path. Found immediately. @nybirdnews.bsky.social @teesbirds.bsky.social

67 Fulmars back on nesting cliff at Skinningrove. @nybirdnews.bsky.social @teesbirds.bsky.social

This floodplain fen in the Billingham Beck Valley produced a few new 10km square water beetle records today, including Hydraena britteni (📷), characteristic of this habitat. Though very urban this is a relatively extensive tract of wetland with lots of potential for interesting invertebrates.

Mild winter days can be surprisingly productive for water beetles in shallow, seasonal pools. An unexpected find today was a large population of the nationally scarce Helophorus granularis in ankle-deep grassy pools in the Vale of Pickering. A species I mostly know from relict fens.

A new record - on 5 December wind power produced enough electricity for 3/4 of UK homes At 23.8GW it meant that even during winter peak demand, it was still providing nearly half the country's power needs Still a way to go though.... www.edie.net/uk-soars-pas...

Three more British MEPs in Nigel Farage’s bloc now alleged to have “followed the script” given to Nathan Gill by an alleged Russian asset, according to prosecutors. At least eight UKIP and Brexit Party MPs were focus of efforts by Nathan Gill www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Hartlepool Headland 8.30-10.30: plenty of porpoises, at least 5 animals. V few birds, 1 Great Northern Diver, 14 Red-throated, wildfowl amounted to a single Eider! @teesbirds.bsky.social

Here is the whole Trump, Brexit, Russia story neatly summed up for you The battle started about Ukraine, now it’s about big tech monopoly power

Hartlepool Headland 8.45-11: highlights 11 Whooper Swans & 1 Great Northern Diver S; also 26 Red-throated Divers; Purple Sandpiper on rocks; Rock Pipit; multiple Harbour Porpoises. @teesbirds.bsky.social

Starting work on a study of the water beetles & water bugs of Cleveland. Curiously, there's a v early report of the large diving beetle Acilius sulcatus ("Not unfrequent in ditches” in vicinity of Stockton-on-Tees, 1829) but only 2 modern records of this nationally widespread species. Overlooked?

Hartlepool Headland 9-11: 1 Great Northern Diver N; 21 Red-throated Divers, ca 150 Pinkfeet S; 1 imm Little Gull S; 1 ?Caspian Gull(1 cy) - not 100%, on sea; Harbour Porpoise @teesbirds.bsky.social

Goldfinch

Other than dolphins v little off Hartlepool Headland 8-10; 30 Red-throated Divers (flyby & on sea), a few Guillemots. @teesbirds.bsky.social

Small pod (4?) of dolphins moving S close-in Hpool Headland 9.30 @teesbirds.bsky.social

Stonechat from Alvor last winter.

Hartlepool Headland 9-10: 17 Great Crested Grebes, 11 Red-throated Divers, 1 Mediterranean Gull, several Harbour Porpoises. @teesbirds.bsky.social

Not been to Coatham Woods before (Coatham nr Long Newton, not the Redcar one!) 185 ha of woodland with plenty of scrub and tussocky grassland. Woodcock, GSW, Jay, large numbers of winter thrushes, Bullfinch, Siskin, Redpoll. @teesbirds.bsky.social

The "peace plan" that Trump is trying to force on Ukraine was cooked up in Miami by Dmitriev, Witkoff & Kushner - cutting out even Marco Rubio. It's a Mafia shakedown reeking of kleptocracy, corruption & betrayal. www.reuters.com/world/europe...

One of the first actions of Reform UK councils was to remove Ukrainian flags from civic buildings. Join the dots...

Hartlepool Headland 8-10: extremely quiet. 1 Brent Goose S, small numbers of Red-throated Diver, Great Crested Grebe & Common Scoter. @teesbirds.bsky.social

Mistle Thrush singing at Boro Sports Village: first sign of spring! @teesbirds.bsky.social

Greatham Creek and Cowpen Marsh from Heslop Harrison's Survey of the Lower Tees Marshes (1918). Embankment began in 1740, eventually allowing reclamation of 26,000 acres (10,522 hectares) of saltmarsh on Cowpen and Saltholme Marshes.

As the Lords environment and climate change committee made clear last month organised waste crime is out of control in this country but instead of a serious effort to tackle this crisis all we get are stupid gimmicks.

Privileged to see this beautiful Firecrest at close-quarters recently, caught for ringing on Hartlepool Headland. One of a few on Teesside over the past couple of weeks. Thanks to all involved.

An excellent, as always, article from the excellent Zack Polanski. "This is our moment to prove that climate action is key to freedom from poverty, pollution, and fear. The future is still ours to write, but only if we act now." bestforbritain.substack.com/p/cop30-must...

Hartlepool Headland 7.45-10.45: 14 Whooper Swans, c. 240 Pinkfeet, 14 Brent Geese, 80 Common Scoter, 1 Long-tailed Duck, 23 Red-throated Divers, 7 Great Crested Grebes. @teesbirds.bsky.social

A grim read - Lesser Kestrels at the 1000-pair colony in Matera, Italy suffering large losses (65%) as a result of climate-induced heatwaves. For every 10 chicks, the heat killed 7. Not sure how they will adapt to that… www.lifefalkon.eu/en/news/the-...

J.W. Heslop Harrison's 1921 floristic map of the 'Trollius Marsh', once part of Teesside's Billingham Beck Valley, now drained and part of a golf course. He described a remarkable fen habitat, full of Globeflower, Meadow-rue, Marsh Hawksbeard (📷), Great Burnet & Purple Moor-grass.

Hartlepool Headland 8.30-10.30: 1 GN Diver, 15+ Red-throated Divers, 62 Common Scoter, 3 Goldeneye, 1 Mediterranean Gull, steady movement of Kittiwakes pushed inshore. @teesbirds.bsky.social

Water Stick-insect at RSPB Saltholme today. This predatory bug (not a stick-insect!) has expanded its range rapidly northwards in recent years. In the late 1990s it reached Nottinghamshire before moving into Yorkshire around 2000. By 2023, it was into Scotland. @teesbirds.bsky.social

Hewitt's Chart of Teesmouth, 1832 (re-drawn) vs now, showing the enormous loss of inter-tidal, saltmarsh & coastal grazing-marsh habitats. S = Seaton Snook, T = Todd Point.

A 'List of Birds' from Sharp's History of Hartlepool (1816). Eider was a rarity but Scaup were common: over 1,000 caught in a week in winter 1788-9 were "sold for 1s. per dozen". Glaucous Gull was simply known as Winter Gull, and a local Herring Gull reached 21 years old. 1/2 @teesbirds.bsky.social

Sheep-puddled margins provide excellent habitat in this Teesside pond, trampling inhibiting growth of reedmace and maintaining open conditions. Both Chara and Nitella stoneworts are present along with a range of pioneer insects such as Mottled Backswimmer (Notonecta maculata).