Our paper, describing kittiwake nesting on offshore infrastructure, is published OA today. There are obvious implications for population monitoring, but comparison with onshore colonies would also be an interesting extension. 🌊🌊🌊 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

NEW on the #BOUdiversityBlog from Ellie Leech Redressing the balance: why gender equity matters to BTO bou.org.uk/blog-leec...#BOUdiversityBlog #ornithology 🪶

Studying breeding waders sometimes involves catching chicks multiple times. Do these intensive studies have negative effects on chick growth? Blog about reassuring paper by Camilo Carneiro et al from 5 Oct 2024 🎂 wadertales.wordpress.com/2024/10/05/h...

Late to posting an early yellow-browed warbler, briefly through scrub at Aust on Monday morning. Otherwise, Siskin moving and single grey plover over. Despite the autumnal feel, still no redwing.

This has received no publicity but is damning. A clear explanation of why this type of reintroduction is not just a distraction and a waste of resources but is ACTIVELY HARMFUL to conservation. Environmental journalists please note and please publicise. operationturtledove.org/captive-rele...

We're looking for a new postdoc on our new BBSCR grant (Graham Taylor/Tim Guilford/Cait Newport). See link below! my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Cool opportunity to work with Joe on the mechanics of seabird migration. #ukbirding #ornithology

I've just had the disappointing news that Ladybird have discontinued their series of modern Ladybird Books due to declining sales, including the unpublished books in the series.

In his #ParentCarerScientist case study, Professor Ben Sheldon FRS talks about navigating crises at home and at work, and why it's important for leaders to set an example when it comes to balancing work with caring responsibilities: #CarersWeek #AndAScientist royalsociety.org/about-us/who...

This is the photo that best captures how good Monday was on the Severn. The first sooty shearwater for Bristol, and the first for Avon since 1974 (📸: @aravindramesh19.bsky.social)

Monday’s Sabines gull was still on the foreshore, below the sea-watchers bench, at Severn Beach yesterday. Still Manx, terns and phalarope in the channel.

Matt did better at getting photos than I did!

Big weather delivered an exceptional push of seabirds up the Severn today, including the first sooty shearwater for 45 years, grey phalaropes, sabines gull and Leach’s petrel.

Sea watching off Severn Beach challenging, but waders at New Passage impressive at high tide in between showers 3 little stint, 10+curlew sands, 2 ruff, 7 common sand, 6 wheatear, 2 whinchat, peregrine, med gull, nice to see @chittening.bsky.social @j-dunning.net @matthall95.bsky.social

More good birds today - cracking juv Spoonbill flying high to the NE, 8 Manx Shearwater and very friendly adult Med Gull again at Severn Beach. Unfortunately was too late for @j-dunning.net's Sabs Gull - becoming a bit of a nemesis bird on patch #ukbirding

Rounded off an excellent week with a Sabine’s gull from Severn Beach, pushed up the channel on squally weather. Also, 8+ Manx, comic and black tern, and spoonbill all on the river.

Sensational day on patch between biblical squalls. Wood Sand, 35+ Curlew Sand, 3 Little Stint, 2 Ruff, Knot, 9 Common Sand, 4 Pintail, 2 Spot Fly, 2 Yellow Wag, Tree Pipit at New Passage. 2 Black, Arctic and Common Tern plus Storm Petrel, 8 Manx Shearwater, Arctic Skua and Med Gull at Severn Beach

Big Severnside tide today and stacks of birds with @matthall95.bsky.social and @j-dunning.net - at least 24 juv curlew sands (other had more), 4 juv little stint (inc a rather grey one), 1 ruff, 2 knot, 4 common sand, 4 blackwit, 6 pintail, 4 wigeon and an adult hobby through SW #birding

The Skopeo surveyor network had an excellent breeding season, using local surveyors for commercial and conservation surveys. As ever, if you're a birder and keen to do more drop us an email - [email protected]

Emily has been touring around ringing groups to gain the experience needed for a ringing permit. She has written this excellent blog on her experience as a women in the UK birding scene.

A hard few days at Severnside (with a wind direction just cutting us off from the seabird action down the channel). Highlights have been juv. Yellow-legged Gull, wind-grounded migrants, and Black-headed Gulls from Poland and Netherlands in the same scope view.

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

📣 Nominations for this year's round of @bou.org.uk awards are currently OPEN! Your chance to recognise those key people in #ornithology 👏 Find out more and make your nominations here: bou.org.uk/about-the-bo... 📆 Deadline 15th Sept 2025 1/5

This is a superb opportunity! More info below 👇

Book-shopping with my son today, we found a book with an illustration of a micro-discovery I made as a MRes student. The paper wasn’t breaking any ground, but I am proud of this particular exploration.

There is nothing more humbling than applying for independent fellowships.

The current position of Natural England is that (re)introduction of White Storks should not be supported. Evidence for their historical presence here is sketchy and it is difficult to rule out historical remains as not pertaining to regular vagrancy. Cultural evidence is weak at best #UKbirding 1/2

Porthgwarra(Gwennap Hd) 0630 - 1530hrs 19 Wilson's Petrel, 14 Corys Shearwater, Great Shearwater, 12 Balearic Shearwater, 150 Storm Petrel, Puffin, Sandwich Tern, 12 Sooty Shearwater, Whimbrel (with M Mckee, M Elliot, J Overfield) #UKBirding

My first ‘careers’ style blog post.

Lesser Whitethroat seem to always be an early season migrant at Aust - two caught this morning with first tennis ball Willow Warbler of the autumn. Otherwise, two more crossbill overhead and a site first ring-necked parakeet. 🎾🎾

There is no need to ship ecological consultants hundreds of miles when there are qualified people locally. Skopeo has just paid a surveyor £3.60 in mileage for travel to four bird survey visits - less than a mile each way. Join the directory here - skopeo.co.uk #lowcarbonbirding

This is an important datapoint for HPAI studies and a great use of ringing data.

Plus a distant flock of ducks heading NE from the Services impressively picked up and snapped by @j-dunning.net have subsequently resolved into 25 Common Scoter! Turned up later at Slimbridge and Sharpness

Bird flu has mostly been out of the news lately—but this excellent story from Scientific American sums up the devastating toll it's had on wild bird populations. #ornithology

Autumnal passage this morning at Aust, with five groups of eleven crossbill and a yellowhammer over the services. Wood sandpiper still on the wetland below. 🍂🪶

It’s great to see RSPB Science posting here now. I have added them as an automatic contributor to the UKBirding feed. 🪶🧪

[now with link] Our opinion, on how animal social research can be applied to the problem of highly pathogenic avian influenza spread, has been published ! 🪶🧪 journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

New preprint: Using pedigree data + genomics from 2,684 great tits in Wytham Woods, we explore spatial genetic structure and the role of dispersal, population turnover and immigration 🐦 With @sheldonbirds.bsky.social @nilomr.bsky.social @jon-slate.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Successful trip to steep holm today - part of a larger project monitoring the breeding gulls.

It’s great to see Bird Study now have a dedicated account - @birdstudy.bsky.social. Bird Study publish a lot of research from amateur ornithologists, including important descriptive studies. As a result they have recently been at the forefront of reporting the impact of HPAI on wild birds. 🪶🧪

Without an engagement driven algorithm Bsky doesn't really have an influencer culture - some popular accounts from x haven't stuck here. The result feels like more organic interaction here to me.

It was such a pleasure to talk to pathfinders running club (via Moi Outside in Hebden Bridge) about twite and the uplands, past and present. Check them out here - www.moi-outside.com

Check out @jj255.bsky.social explaining declines in house sparrow, 16 minutes into Inside Science. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... 🧪🪶

Can anybody share photos of upland birds I can use for a talk to a local group? Credited, of course.

Very pleased to announce new issue of #BirdStudy: The impacts of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza on birds: part 2 The 2nd part of our Special Issue on bird flu, with 10 more papers on impacts, vulnerabilities, responses & management of outbreaks. www.tandfonline.com/toc/tbis20/c... #ornithology

Gripping photo of one of the Swedish Wilson's Snipe displaying showing diagnostic two outer tail feathers extended on each side www.artportalen.se/Media/Image/...

Ten years after I ringed my first, our young ringing group in Bristol ringed our first peregrine chicks in the gorge. Two males and female - below the iconic bridge, in a cavity peppered with Carboniferous sea-shells. 🪶🧪

And all over the country!

A whole new level of #plastics in bird nests. Looks like a warbler nest, substantially made from segments of fibre optic cable from drone warfare in Ukraine. There must be hundreds of thousands of km of this stuff lying across the front lines in Ukraine, littering the landscape forever. #ornithology

This is a really nice paper on concealed high contrast plumage in passerines. 🪶 #ornithology