There was a wonderful selection of the rare & scarce showing well at Filby broad but you couldn’t ignore this showy stunning ♂ Goldeneye!

A thoroughly enjoyable day out East started with sifting through a few thousand Pink-feet, great to watch at least 7 Tundra Beans, this group of three showing nicely!

A wonderful experience to have guided this Botswana tour for @oriolebirding.bsky.social the full trip report is now online here www.oriolebirding.com/.../Botswana.... This tour runs again in November 2026 - if you're interested, an amazing trip!

For me, the prettiest flower of our New Year Plant Hunt had to be the exquisite soft indigo & snow white of the Ivy-leaved Toadflax. I mean, this is just wow! @linnetincley.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social #cleyplants

Looks like keeping dogs on a lead might just be about to happen!? It was probably a matter of time before bird flu started jumping across to other mammals.

Farmed Salmon is not good for you or the environment, in fact it’s a disaster for the environment. Amazing how many people eat Salmon unaware of how it’s reared and think it’s good healthy food. Antibiotics, colourants, pesticide sprays and still so many infected and lice ridden.

🦢 What a swan’s 570km U-turn could tell us about water, wetlands, and a changing climate.... www.linkedin.com/posts/kane-b...

Any wildlife conservation is good! But trying to work out whether the UK’s concept of a ‘vast area for conservation’ is just that we generally have such small reserves here or that the BBC don’t have an understanding that 15 sq/miles is just 5 miles x 3 miles?! www.bbc.com/news/article...

"After only one year, the transformation is dramatic", says a conservation manager about the growth of a colony of 2,000 sooty tern seabirds. Previously, invasive rats had destroyed their eggs, making it impossible for the native birds to persist on the islands. www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/inv...

Farage: epic grifter

It all kicked off yesterday afternoon on North Ron with a Radde’s Warbler trapped at the obs! And then a Northern Bullfinch caught at HH I didn’t think it could get any better until Alison and I found this Black-throated Thrush in a net during the roost catch! #BirdingScotland #OrkneyBirding

Another good day with @sconebirding.bsky.social & @andyinnorfolk.bsky.social started yesterday with 33,000 Starlings & over 800 finches! Followed up with a nicely picked out migrating Hen Harrier by Nick at Holme & rounded off at the end of the day with this obliging juvenile Purple Sand!

Some vismig at Hunstanton with @sconebirding.bsky.social and @norfolkbirding.bsky.social produced some good passage with lots of Chaffinches heading north, unusually. A walk to the beach at Holme produced a ringtail Hen Harrier over and plenty of Blackbirds and Robins for company.

Best day so far this autumn for me. Lovely wander around Holkham & Overy with @sconebirding.bsky.social busy skies with 300+ Redwing, 40+ Brambling, 2500+ Starlings, 1-2s Fieldfare, Siskin, 20+ Blackbirds, flushed a SE Owl, Peregrine & 2 Yellow-browed Warblers.

Come work with me!! It will be fun. #seabirds

Operation Turtle Dove has issued an official statement expressing their disapproval over the captive breeding and releasing of European Turtle Dove in the UK:

Rarity finders: Isabelline Wheatear in Co Durham Finding a rare bird is thrilling, but doing so due to it landing on your arm is an entirely different level of exhilaration, as Andy Close experienced in a remarkable occurrence at Seaburn:

Brilliant & hilarious!!

Marsh Warbler at Hillswick this afternoon was a just reward for our Shetland group after sticking out some pretty grim weather for most of the day! Very elusive but eventually showed ok - a really buttery one which at times looked more like a Garden or pale Icterine! #UKbirding #UKbirds

After the Peregrine vs LTSkua battle I went home, made a coffee and settled down to see if a heavy shower had dropped anything into the back garden. Bingo! First garden record of Redstart! #ukbirding

Watching @lfcr.bsky.social v Southampton and just switched over from @itvsport.bsky.social to @skysportpl.bsky.social as Stephen Warnock’s punditry is so dreadful!!

Great morning at Hunstanton with great company. Star of the show was this Cory’s Shearwater! @garyhibberd.bsky.social @andyinnorfolk.bsky.social @norfolkbirding.bsky.social @garyelts.bsky.social

Well, I didn't expect to see one of these today - Pechora Pipit at South Shields this afternoon. A very tough bird to see, and showed mainly in flight, but it did show well on a couple of occasions... a proper mainland mega, and a lifer for me. #UKBirding #NEBirding

Chagas disease, a potentially deadly condition caused by a parasite carried by insects called kissing bugs, should now be considered endemic in some parts of the United States and should be considered in the diagnosis so that people can receive prompt treatment. www.ctvnews.ca/health/artic...

Ooooh, some actual scrutiny …. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One of the @ldvnnr.bsky.social reintroduced Corncrakes has pinged our MOTUS Tower! On 24th August at 21:32 it was picked up migrating over Spurn for 6 minutes! Amazingly, the same bird was detected just 90 minutes later at Weybourne, Norfolk! More info here www.facebook.com/share/p/1Arw...

A day behind the Pink-feet, our first Whooper Swans of the autumn touched down on Barra. This family of 3 were resting in the bay when we got home this afternoon. #BirdingScotland

We are on applecross in west Scotland All day skeins of pink-footed geese have been flying over. They are migrating from Greenland and Iceland to their wintering grounds in the U.K. - perhaps north Norfolk! Winter is coming!!!

A last minute weekend in Tarifa,Sunday saw thousands of Raptors and took an unexpected turn when @beachyheadbirder.bsky.social and I found a Blue-cheeked bee eater.Initially heard calling,then some disbelief but picked up on wires.Thanks @ingloriousbustards.bsky.social ‘s group lending us a scope!

A few pics from @oriolebirding.bsky.social tour to Andalucia last week. Amazing day 3 as 17000 Honey Buzzards passed, we personally enjoyed around 8k in an awesome morning mixed with Marsh & Montagu’s Harriers, Booted & Short-toed Eagle, White & Black Storks & hundreds of Bee-eaters! #birding

A superb days seawatching at Hunstanton yesterday with @mochaman.bsky.social @mandymyers007.bsky.social @andyinnorfolk.bsky.social 147 Manx, a Balearic, 10 Arctic, 3 Great, a Pom, 277 Gannet also migrants over the sea 4 Marsh hr, an Osprey, GWEgret plus Yw Wags, Swallow, H Martin & Mipits.

My recent seawatching-inspired artwork for @aluladesigns.bsky.social, a Fea's type Pterodroma petrel #SuperSeabirdSunday #BirdArt

Colour-ring readers jave contributed greatly to the science underpinning 1️⃣0️⃣ years of WaderTales blogs. One of the best studies, in terms of feedback to observers, is the Sanderling project run by @jeroen-reneerkens.bsky.social. More here: wadertales.wordpress.com/2019/10/04/t... #ornithology

Whole region struggles to hold water now, as water table has fallen so far due to drainage & abstraction (more housing is making that worse). The meres will never come back, as water would have to be kept in, above the water table and against the flow, rather than being a sink where water flows in.

What a truly amazing days birding in the Straits of Gibraltar on @oriolebirding.bsky.social tour - c9000 Honey Buzzards, hundreds of Booted, Short-toed Eagles, 1000+ Bee-eaters, 25 Montagu’s Harriers, Black Storks & over 1000 White Storks, the latter performing this mesmerising sight overhead!!

Somebody get Roy Keane on TV now!! 😂😂

How they returned Holkham back to wetlands with breeding spoonbill and little, cattle and great white egret. All about water control and managing cattle grazing. youtube.com/watch?v=kirn...

Richard please if possible what were the 12 woodland species studied?

HUGE numbers of Adonis Blue at Fontmell Down in North Dorset today, over 200 in 30 mins, one every 5m in places. Just like the old days. Also 4 Silver-spotted Skipper. Grazing looks perfect, but mighty dry. Well done @dorsetwildlife.bsky.social

Whilst some of us would rather just go out birding & see things we weren’t expecting to see!

Humans outperform Merlin Sound ID in field-based point-count surveys academic.oup.com/condor/advan... 😊 #ScotBirds #UKBirding

@NorfolkWT #mothsmatter #teammoth moth trapping this morning gave some lovely results at Holme! Some new ones for me coming from Derbyshire @norfolkbirding.bsky.social

More Hummingbird Hawk Moth action today at the fab Buddleia outside @cleyspy.bsky.social at least 3 plus several Painted Ladies #mothsmatter#teammoth @norfolkmoths.bsky.social What a Summer for them! @timallwood.bsky.social @norfolkbirding.bsky.social

This is a superb opportunity! More info below 👇

🦋 New UKCEH research with @naturalengland.bsky.social and @btobirds.bsky.social shows the positive impacts of agri-environment schemes (AES) on butterflies. Paper: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @jappliedecology.bsky.social 🧵🧪 1/

The first autumn passerine migrants appearing. Yesterday…Arctic & Great Skuas appeared offshore & the last flocks of Swifts were overhead. Nice to see @rspbtitchwellsnett.bsky.social brimming with waders 520 Black-wits, 48 Ruff, 3 Greenshank, 3 Little Stints, 4 LRP, Cn & Green Sand & a Hobby.

On this eve’s shared fishing/birding trip to Pol Bank, 5km SW of Bishop Rock, F3 NW, Wilson’s Stormy were common with 13 birds, & c250 Europeans. For shears, Greats remain steady with 28, Cory’s scarce with 5, & 2 Sooties. Also, Arctic Skua & Yellow-legged Gull. Photo Joe Pender #seabirds