🎄It's Christmas Eve🎄 Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #contrast birds that stand out against their background and the alt is #faceoff birds facing camera ~ set by @alan678.bsky.social ~ decided to go with this gorgeous Male Black Redstart🙏❤️🎄🎅🎄🪶 🦉 #birdingWales #ukbirding #ukwildlife #EastCoastKin

Another of my Northern Hawk-owl shots for @alan678.bsky.social’s #BirdOfTheDay alternative theme #faceoff #birds #photography #nature #wildlife #Finland

@alan678.bsky.social set the #BirdOfTheDay theme today to #contrast and the alt theme to #faceoff This razorbill picture is one of my favorites and ticks both boxes. Happy Holidays!

It is that time of the year again. Merry Christmas everyone.

We are essentially constantly being told by most of the world media that some people (dark, poor) are worth far less than others (western, wealthy). There's only one word for that. RACISM.

Light holiday blogposting, part 2: More in my series on Latin names for gardeners. scientistseessquirre... It's -15C outside my window - great day to think about gardening??

In 'The Scientist's Guide to Writing', I offer this as an example of writing that's fairly technical (for public-facing writing) but also beautiful. Reading copyedits and just struck again by how lovely this passage is.

Good to see NEV and the EEA more active on here. Dutch entomologists are a good bunch, but I may be biased 🙂...

Bluethroat, spectacular bird, what a privilege to see it flitting around 🪶 #birds

Finally got some photos of Australia’s “blue ant”, Diamma bicolor, which is not an ant at all but a shockingly large metallic blue thynnid wasp, wingless and solitary, that hunts mole crickets. Been meaning to shoot this thing for years.

#ArtDD2025 Black bryony Another from my archive for #ArtAdventCalendar Day 22. @saocousins.bsky.social @holnicotenh.bsky.social @stevecobbin.bsky.social @andykaitken.bsky.social @indikon.bsky.social @mayfer.social

Waxwings at Port Clarence, Teesside. A blog at jonathanpomroy.wordpress.com

Please don’t rely on this technology for anything important. And double checking AI is always required.

For #SuperSeabirdSunday I have a set of Northern Gannets from a visit to RSPB Bempton Cliffs in 2024. #birds #photography #EastCoastKin #naturephotography #ukbirding @rspb.bsky.social

Day 17 #BatMas: Egyptian mouse-tailed bat (Rhinopoma cystops) A species found in North Africa & Middle East, these bats form groups of a few individuals or about one thousand bats. They roost either in caves or human-made structures & have been reported roosting in pyramids! 📸: Bruce Thomson

Day 12 #BatMas: Patricia's disk-winged bat (Thyroptera wynneae)🦇🌎🧪 A new species discovered in 2014, it is 1 of 5 species that have suction cups on their thumbs & hind feet, helping them cling onto leaves. They can also be identified by the tricolour hairs on its underbelly 📸: Velazco et al. 2014

I stumbled on this thread way too late, but totally in time to catch up. Bats are such a wonderful and diverse group of mammals. They are on my list of animals to dive deeper into for next year's mammalian ecology teaching.

Why are rich people paying trillions for “artificial intelligence?” I know people who have genuine intelligence. The real deal. None of this fake shit. Give them your money. It’s a better product.

A few of the estimated 700 Mallard ducks flying over Benedictine Bottoms during the Christmas Bird Count centered around Atchison, Kansas, USA, today, December 20.

Great day of bird watching at Chiemsee with @mhanusch.bsky.social. I captured a species endemic to Germany.

Multiple anthropogenic stressors can negatively impact species but can a single stressor also have multiple, concurrent impacts? Here we show that light pollution creates several simultaneous impacts to the nocturnal movement ecology of a moth and a spider: tinyurl.com/5eku5bff (1/5)

Marsh Harriers coming into roost as the sun was setting 🪶 #birds

I can't imagine how many billions went into developing these dumb tech things. These things are all pretty dumb, but the dumbest of all I find this humanoid robot.

It's the first video evidence of polar bears hunting and eating reindeer—something that had long been assumed, but never clearly seen. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4s0hU6P #ScienceMagArchives

You don’t need GenAI to improve your grammar. Seriously. Word processing software has non-GenAI grammar functions for ages. As an English-as-second-language speaker, I can assure you that we don’t need GenAI to write. My writing came out alright.

A vibrant kingfisher perched on a wire fence, showing off its bright blue-green feathers and warm orange tones. #Birds #lukehaigh #birdwatching #photography

It's time for #WrensDay where the little lads & lasses pop into the light, so they can gather enough food for 'Brunch'. In the line up we have Willie & Wendy Wren from RSPB Old Moor in November. #birds #photography #EastCoastKin #naturephotography #ukbirding #birdphotography @rspb.bsky.social

🫜 Incorporating winter cover crops into forecasting aphid outbreaks leads to better prediction of virus spread in sugar beet crops 🌱 Improving integrated pest management (IPM) strategies & reducing reliance on insecticides 👉 doi.org/10.1111/aab.70084 @jki-research.bsky.social

Paper 11: Sander Buddendorf et al. showed that dimming ALAN sources reduces, but does not eliminate insect attraction. Pipistrelle bats, however, preferred foraging in darkness, but were not affected by dimming. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Perfect shot. And the contrast between te eye and the scale colors, fantastic!

View from the Großkanzler, near our writing retreat venue. Quite a privilege to be here.

There's a cross-platform uniformity to how LLMs bullshit you. Today I was designing an exercise for a responisble-use of-LLMs course we are designing for NIH trainees. I asked ChatGPT to complete one of Claude Shannon's original guessing games: "There is no reverse on a __(10 letters)__"

This week, we have our dpt writing retreat. First afternoon and evening, I already did final polishes of two papers and the rough polish on a third. Great to tick boxes. If only I could have this kind of focus and non-disturbance every day! Tomorrow; write invited commentary. Let's hope for focus!

My garden camera trap usually only yields mice and rats, so I am easily impressed, but I guess capturing a leopard on a study trip is pretty neat!

Kingfisher Silhouette - I'm always looking for something to silhouette at sunrise. On this morning the Kingfisher stayed on the perch long enough for me to get it against the colorful sky. 🪶

As an avid observer of algorithms I think I’ve figured out part of what happened here. FB now explicitly looks for and directs posts you’re opposed to into your feed, to rage-bait engagement. So now my posts are being actively boosted into people’s feeds of who reject climate. Ha! 😄😵‍💫

„Wäre Teheran also die erste Metropole, die wegen der Klimakrise unbewohnbar wird? Ich glaube, das ist die falsche Frage. Sie führt in die Irre (…) Teheran wäre die erste Metropole, über die politisch das Urteil gesprochen wird: in der Klimakrise nicht mehr zu bewahren.“ Neuer Newsletter:

This also feels like a long time ago! Stared at by wild European Bison in a wild forest on a warm spring day. I see Bison every spring in Białowieża Forest, but not often like this: a group of adults protecting their calf, making sure I didn't get too close. Normally they just run, thundering away.

Each has its own story of impact

And it's no coincidence that the 0.001% are using their power, influence and resources, to ensure that media coverage of sustainability focusses on the global population of humans, and not the Trillionaires' own vast resource consumption.

Oligarchy (noun): A government of and by a few at the top, who exercise power for their own benefit. Their power and wealth increase as they make laws that favor themselves, manipulate financial markets, and create monopolies that put more wealth into their pockets.

I suck at aesthetics, but I love my home made pizzas. When I grow up, I want to build a proper wood-fired pizza oven outside, but who knows when that'll be...

Common Pheasants are an interesting bunch. For some of my students, having seen one lists among their peak nature experiences. When they learn about how they got here, they are usually very surprised. Nevertheless their intraspecific diversity and distributions make it a very cool species!

Cursorimorphae and Aequornithes were up this week. Quite the batch to discuss, but a nice one at that!

Zebra Cobra (Naja nigricincta nigricincta), highly venomous.

Karoo Sand Snake (Psammophis notostictus), mildly venomous.

Coral Snake (Aspidelaps lubricus), venomous. #snakes #herpetology #herping #snakesofsa #southafrica