Give this a listen www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi... not sure I have heard anything genuinely new in music for 40 years. This is unclassifiable and brilliant

I just took action with @theactionnetwork.bsky.social: Why are you marching?. Take action here: actionnetwork.org/forms/tell-u...

Imagine buying a WHOLE state like it's a garage sale item. This is NOT a fake news." denmarkification.com?utm=.share.b...

Finally, a nuanced debate on immigration @zackpolanski.bsky.social

Not good for the heart rate - this view on a cocked tail of an ultra skulky ground-dwelling warbler in the garden. 60 birds caught today, 56 new, and this a both a new bird for the garden and a new ringing species. Didn't count the tail feathers in the field, just saw the uts and a rusty arse 1/2

New refugees are now in the Hotel in Hoylake. They have nothing - just the cheap clothes given on arrival, no spare underwear, no change for washing, and no warm clothes for winter. Many are from poorer nations with no money at all — please help. hoylake4all.com?p=74

Not been catching much recently - so here are a couple of Ecotone mistnet poles getting an alternative use. The right-wing deportation march from central Liverpool to L8 Women's hospital past the African Caribbean Centre on Salvery Remembrance Day and a Mosque, allowed by the police, was prevented!

Update. The little scrote who threatened to kill me has admitted to Section 4 public order offence (using threatening words or behaviour with intent to cause fear or provoke unlawful violence). There is an Amazon Prime Neo-Nazi in this pic too - if a shit one www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Al...

I also spent a lot of the afternoon being interviewed by the police wrt the death threat issued against me. Also gave evidence against this lovely chap is discussing being threatened with arrest early in the proceedings. Public order veering towards hate speech. #hoylake

I have had an interesting week. something like 15 hours of standing outside a hotel housing refugees a few 100m from my front door, holding a double-sided sign, culminating in a death threat from a noxious little sctote.

photos.app.goo.gl/i7kx929sxuJh... The Veldt at Futureyard - 36 y-o album finally self-released and pioneering it was!

My first new bird in Cheshire since the Pallid Swift in the garden. Got there by Merseyrail card and bike! I just finished an article on Cheshire listing, so it would have been rude not to advance my county list. Great find by Pete Wragg.

I hear this visceral revulsion on the doorstep from just about everyone who voted Labour, especially long-standing labour members. There is a welcoming home in the thoroughly democratic Green Party www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What a total treat to see Alain Johannes at Future Yard. He's normally seen out with the likes of John Paul Jones, Peter Buck, Dave Grohl or Josh Homme making up the numbers - when he's not producing albums for Arctic Monkeys, PJ Harvey or playing with Peal Jam. Here - to a tiny audience 1/3

If ever proof was needed that Labour have completely lost the plot - PIP changes will see those with the shortest life expectancy and living in areas with greatest deprivation, hit hardest. www.healthequitynorth.co.uk/red-wall-con...

An Iberian adjacent Chiffchaff is the highlight of the last couple of days. Possibly it has some stray genes. I looked the part from behind, aside from an underwhelming primary projection - nice mossy green and very yellow super. P2 v long pectoral band but no white throat or pale lores 1/2

A definite improvement (even if yesterday's ringing total of a solitary Goldfinch was a low bar). 5 species of Warbler caught for the day, including two new for the year. Sedge W is probably my favourite bird - and they always look mega rare in a garden! Male Whitethroat too. #ukbirds #birds

Migration started today at 06:15 and stopped exactly 30 seconds later. In that 30 seconds, two Tree Pipits and 2 Willow Warblers arrived from the sea and plummeted into the garden buckthorn. One Tree Pip was much richer-toned and substantially larger than the other. 3rd and 4th ringed this year.

A quiet day on the ringing front, too much rain south of here to allow overnight passage (just one willow warbler) - however, this angry bird was new to the year's ringing list. Something deeply penetrating about the stare of a Sparrowhawk - in this case, a 2nd cal year male. #birds #ukbirds

Really exciting net round first thing in the garden. Another Tree Pipit AND a Dutch-ringed Willow Warbler. I've ringed 109 Phylloscs already this year, plus two controls

I love how testosterone-fuelled Spring warblers are. Here are two male Willow Wablers doing the equivalent of "you spilled my pint" and "you are you looking at pal" from separate bags. photos.app.goo.gl/qN91uEsxwJ66... The other day I had a Chiffchaff singing while hanging upside down in a net!

My first Tree Pipit of the year - one of my absolute favourite #ukbirds #birds I love ther subtly stouter bill than Meadow Pipit, hint of a rear ear covert spot as well as the more traditional features of hind claw shape and abruptly fine flank streaks

Have blasted through the 100 warblers ringed earlier than any other year. Today's highlight was undoubtedly this 2nd cal year Grasshopper Warbler aged by a couple of retained juv outer primaries. Apologies for the booty shot, but its my favourite angle on a gripper. 6 Blackaps also

Today's unexpected bird caught in the garden was a nominate race Redwing that was totally laden with fat and clearly about to go back to Scandinavia or further. Stunning looking birds. I've now ringed 62 Chiffchaffs this year.

Well, that was unexpected. My earliest record, only the 4th for the garden and new for the ringing list - caught before dawn. On release it flew straight up until it was a dot in the sky #ukbirding

Oddly dark ear coverts (and correspondingly contrasty lower eye crescent) on the Willow Warbler - dark legs too. Big bird (72mm wing). Perhaps a non-diagnosable NE bird.

Ringing very samey just now, but is a nice samey - Phylloscs and Redpolls, Controlled a Chiffchaff this morning - these are the existing ones since I started ringing in the garden in 2019 and a handsome but very vanilla Poll

First Oddpoll of the year - would likely pass as a Lesser, but for its 77mm wing, 58mm tail. Quite wingy, a little pale, and very clean flanks and undertail. Rump quite dark - wing bars quite big. Ridiculously fluffy too. It dropped feathers - I have enough poll feathers for a duvet or a PhD

I have yet to prove that any of my Redpolls are heading to Iceland, but this unexpected capture in the garden is - a male White Wagtail. I last handled on in 1979! It was out feeding on the beach later in the morning.

An absolute UNIT of a Chiffchaff caught this morning in an otherwise quiet session. 65mm wing. 9.1g (no fat) and a long primary projection. If it's not a NE European bird I will show my posterior in Woolies' Window. No feathers to hassle @docmartin2mc.bsky.social with - relying on a recovery!

Phoooar - look at the [pollen] horn on that!

Just like buses, one Redpoll from Sandwich Bay BO (a new Obs for me to get a control to/from) followed swiftly by another - ringed a year apart but clearly taking the same trajectory - east coast in autumn and west coast in spring.

First Chiffchaff of the Year, Blackcap and a Comma in the garden today

Spot the birder's garden

My two great obsessions in life coincided tonight - live music and birds.... Fab night as ever in Futureyard. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQCb... Can't be @rsed downloading my recording of Rare Birds by The Bug Club - a band full of fun and energy.

WBC has no money - this is probably a good thing for biodiversity if not for people in need of support, since their plan to put an amenity beach in Annex 1 habitat is now unaffordable. Time to do something +ve ie. what they should have planned in the 1st place www.change.org/p/allow-us-t...

Unexpected action in the ringing room today

Just finished entering my 2024 ringing data for the garden. 1359 encounters, 1034 new. Highlights were the 1st 4 Yellow-b-Ws, Barred Warbler, but best of all 346 Greenfinch, 220 of which were retraps. 94 Chiffs, 83 WW, 2 L.Whitethroat, 3 Sedge, and a Garden W.

Fresh LidAR data shows the accelerating accretion at Hoylake. For all the negative press it gets, largely from people who just don't understand physics, the area of greenery is tiny area of mudless sand 2023 v a Spring High Tide - you can see the developing dunes and dune slacks in the photo.

My challenge is to get this gender fluid carrot to the table on Xmas day before anyone spots it. Thanks oddbox you have excelled yourself on this occasion

Why scrapping regeneration projects, 20mph limits, and cycle lanes won’t solve Wirral Council’s budget woes www.birkenhead.news/why-scrappin... A resounding sound of a nail making accurate contact with non-pointy end of a nail. Well done @edbarnesjourno.bsky.social

Rents have risen 30% since 2105. Local housing allowance has risen 6.7% in the same period. Rental costs are in danger of taking over from fuel costs as the driver of debt on Wirral www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/...

Stop Labour U-turning. on Neonicotinoids Please can you add your name to this petition: act.gp/3IAdLCh Thanks for your support on this.

Just lost another hour to the migration atlas. Just one Redpoll in the NW (the Faroes) but 3 from SE of Lake Baikal.

Having a clear out. Anyone fancy a Scopac for £25 plus postage? Three years old and virtually unused. Result of a failed flirtation. 🫤 DM me. 😊

Tonight Wirral Greens will ask the council to declare a biodiversity emergency. The biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis are deeply interconnected, each amplifying the other's impacts. Climate change drives biodiversity loss by altering habitats, increasing extreme weather events 1/5

Commercial Cockling, involving dozens of vehicles and hundreds of people, effectively strip mining the natural resources used by the tens of thousands of migratory wading birds is not sustainable or acceptable, but it is legal on an SPA and Ramsar site. Any thoughts @markavery.bsky.social

For the 1st time in my life I am taking ear protectors to a gig. Glad to get a chance to see Metz before they go on an indefinite hiatus and rare now to have a band choose to stop at their peak. I get real Husker Du vibes from them. Another amazing result for Futureyard! youtu.be/4rT3JT5iKPk?...