RSPB Scientist Simon Wotton shares a summary of the results from two recently published reports: Breeding Bird Survey and Wetland Bird Survey. Read on to learn more about the ups and downs of the UK’s birds www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen... #CitSci @jncc.bsky.social @btobirds.bsky.social 🪶 🧪

Labour returns 26 hereditary peers to the House of Lords. Starmer gives life peerages to 15 Tory hereditary peers, 2 Labour & 9 crossbenchers. That promise to abolish the Lords, which was later watered down to reforming it is working out REALLY well. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

In the immortal words of the current Duke of Westminster when asked what he thought was the most important thing - become a friend of William the Conqueror

Worth a read to remind yourself of the oleaginous Offord's extreme right-wing views and the dark money which enabled his political career. I don't really care how much money or how many yachts he has. I care that he proves UK democracy is for sale. bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/10/03/b...

Good riddance to hereditary peers. This country remains in thrall to aristocracy and inherited privilege, and it's an absolute cancer. "Birth right" bollocks should not afford anyone a higher status than others in 2026. Ludicrous crap.

The demise of the once powerful German SPD. On the same track as Starmer's Labour & what happened to the French Socialists & Italian post-Communists. All killed off by collusion with neoliberalism, austerity & euro fiscal conservatism. And by so doing fuelling the populist right.

Just watched this old vid with Mhairi Black and a small baby Owen Jones. She lays out the exact stuff Hannah Spencer is talking about now, ten years later, and it’s actually worse now.

🚨BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court kneecapped the Voting Rights Act (VRA), the landmark civil rights law that restricted racial gerrymandering and racial discrimination in voting for more than fifty years. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

This uphill range shift is important because as the birds move uphill there is a smaller area of suitable habitat available. This research highlights a particular threat of climate change to island endemics.

Scientists used fourteen years of bird data to demonstrate that four species are shifting their ranges uphill. The most significant shift is by the Montserrat Oriole, which is endemic to Montserrat and a priority species for RSPB.

New research shows that some of the forest birds on the small Caribbean Island of Montserrat are shifting their ranges up the mountain. This shift is expected under climate change. Read on for a summary Full paper: doi.org/10.1111/jbi.70223 @uni-goettingen.de @steffopp.bsky.social 🪶 🧪

Another early-morning vismig session paid off when 135 Arctic Terns, in 3 groups, flew north east past Severn Beach on their long migration. For me, witnessing their spectacular journey to the far north is the highlight of Spring on the Severnside patch. Pic: @migrationmatt.bsky.social #ukbirding

naebdy cares mate

One of the great things about early season mountain botany, is that when the plants aren't so lush you can enjoy looking at the bryophytes with fewer distractions! Two lovely ones here - Bryum alpinum and one of the Anthelia snow-bed liverworts 😍

Biological Data and GIS Officer - Plantlife International - environmentjob.co.uk/jobs/110085-...

I used this feature a lot. It's annoying that Google have disabled it. www.autoevolution.com/news/google-... #iPhone #GoogleMaps #Google

Primula veris, Cowslip, with Galium odoratum, Sweet Woodruff. #WildflowerHour

Empty glens like Strathnaver were teeming with life before Patrick Sellar's brutal evictions in 1814. Now clearance descendants in Sutherland & Coigach are putting a mark back on the land. Two stories Scots sd know. One crowdfunder. Any help much appreciated. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/highland-c...

Shepherd's Cress, Teesdalia nudicaulis, at Dungeness today. #RabbitPoo for scale. #WildflowerHour

Reform has 3 words of Welsh on the cover of their Welsh manifesto and 2 of them are spelt wrong.

Scottish Raptor Monitoring Coordinator - British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) - environmentjob.co.uk/jobs/110054-... #ScottishBirding

Let’s get independence done! #VoteSNP1SGP2 SNP will hold vote on Section 30 order for indyref2 on first day of Holyrood term www.thenational.scot/news/2605557...

Yesterday we enjoyed our second encounter with Orcas in six days with a pod of at least 10 individuals feeding off the east side of Sumburgh Head. It soon became evident that they were not one of our three semi-resident or visiting Icelandic pods and... #MarineLife #MarineMammals #UKWildlife

Wayfaring tree, Viburnum lantana, growing amidst a hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna, hedge, Chimney Meadows, Oxfordshire, England #WildflowerHour #HedgerowChallenge

What can you find flowering in a hedgerow? That’s the challenge this week from Wildflowerhour! Have a good rummage in a hedge (get ready for the funny looks 👀) & share your pics for #WildflowerHour this Sunday 8-9pm using the hashtag #HedgerowChallenge! Happy hedge-diving!

Snipe update! Lots more tagged Snipe have flown from Ireland to Iceland Please read linked thread. Data from @tomasgunnarsson.bsky.social @joseaalves.bsky.social #ornithology

#SuperSeabirdSunday Welcome back, Roseate Tern, to the Northumberland coast.⁦ @steelyseabirder.bsky.social

This ancient triploid tree from deepest, darkest Tasmania is pretty hecking cool, as are the good folk at Plants of Tasmania, who are wonderfully dedicated to keeping tasmanian endemic species alive. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04...

FT exclusive: Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney held talks with tech company Google DeepMind to pitch a project on artificial intelligence as he mulled building a career outside the maelstrom of British politics. www.ft.com/content/c3a3...

Call for participants If you speak Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and/or Shaetlan, you are invited to share your experiences, knowledge, and perspectives. This research will contribute to reversing language decline and strengthening linguistic diversity across Europe www.uhi.ac.uk/en/media/202...

Assistant Species Recovery Officer - White Tailed Eagle - Forestry England - environmentjob.co.uk/jobs/109979-...

A new Survation poll has shown a “miserable” level of support for nuclear power in Scotland. The polling makes grim reading for Scottish Labour and the LibDems who are both promoting new nuclear bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/04/20/n...

There are so many tech changes coming in, it is hard to keep up with the various recommendations and advice for and against it. Copilot is something I don't want harvesting my data. Clippy's degenerate cousin.

I wish when the Scottish press touted the results of opinion polls like today's More in Common poll it would point out that polls which base their results on having the Scottish Greens stand in every constituency are necessarily inaccurate. The Greens are standing in only 6 constituencies.

ach well all livin language is sacred… —Tom Leonard Published in GHOSTIE MEN (1980) #poem #poetry

Wood sorrel #wildflowerhour

Annual knawel, Sclerantus annuus Ssp. annuus, with the ground hugging leaf rosettes of Birdsfoot, Ornithopus perpusillus, below it, Frilford Heath, Oxfordshire, England #wildflowerhour #botany

Common Storksbill, Erodium cicutarium, flower and long beaked fruits, Frilford Heath, Oxfordshire, England #wildflowerhour #botany

Danish scurvygrass, Cochlearia danica, Newhaven, Scotland #CabbageFamily #Wildflowerhour

Eastern rocket, Sisymbrium orientale, Newhaven, Scotland #CabbageFamily #Wildflowerhour

Gutted to hear of Andy Kershaw's passing. A memorable broadcast journalist for #BBCRadio4's #FromOurOwnCorrespondent, the #TodayProgramme & #TheWorldTonight, Andy reported from the 1994 #Rwanda genocide, the #Angola civil war in 1996, #SierraLeone in 2001 and repeatedly from #Haiti.

While one great power exports its solar-electric tech stack to the world, the other revs up a fossil fuel powered AI build out. Basically a William Gibson novel at this point.

It's something that's perhaps easier to see from a distance, but Ireland is run almost entirely by men, to an extent not matched in almost any other European country, and this has consequences.

In my working career few things disgusted me more than senior managers throwing more junior colleagues under the bus for their own errors of judgment.

Days like today, you can really tell that the Bluesky coders have 'harnessed the power of AI'.