A lovely morning spent checking 20 nest boxes on a private site in Warwickshire 🌿🐣 An incredible 110 Blue Tit chicks were ringed today — a fantastic sign that it’s shaping up to be a positive breeding year for this beautiful species 💙 Always a privilege to monitor these nests.

11th May: nothing more than odd ones and twos of the commonest migrants grounded at the Bill today; yesterday's Firecrest still about at the Obs; good eastbound movement of c500 Manx developed offshore during the evening; 15 Sanderling amongst the waders at Ferrybridge.

truth matters!!

Weymouth news: 2 Night Herons have just flown nw from the main part of Lodmoor and disappeared somewhere way off in the distance to the north of Radipole - looked as though they were dropping behind distant trees. Completely flukey sightings while we were trying to record the booming Bittern!

And also at RSPB Lodmoor, here's the one call given by the Night Herons as they flew by whilst the mic/video were recording for the booming Bittern

Rather idyllic over at RSPB Lodmoor this evening - here's a little sequence of the Bittern booming (which it isn't doing very often - just 3-5 booms every 10-15 minutes this evening)

Pass it on. We need the very best for this one.

Sparrowhawk euthanised in Scottish Highlands after illegal trap caused "catastrophic" leg injury. Police & SSPCA appeal for information. Details ⬇️ #RaptorResearch #WildlifeCrime #BirdingScotland raptorpersecutionuk.org/2026/05/11/s...

Sadly, this is not an isolated observation. Like it or not we are living in an impoverished ‘New Normal’…

Reintroducing Christian prayers into council proceedings is an exclusionary step back that ignores the reality of modern Britain. Even the Council’s own census analysis shows that less than 50% of residents identify as Christian, with 4/10 having no religion.

125 pilot whales killed in the first Grindadráp (hunt) of the season, including calves & pregnant females💔 1/3

Councillors at Reform UK-led Kent County Council have proposed introducing the Lord’s Prayer at the start of council meetings. This would be a step backwards for inclusive local democracy. Council business should not exclude people on the basis of religion or belief. Kent is not a Christian county.

Were probably hoping for a better 'first ever in a mist-net at Portland' but we'll take this Hairy Dragonfly from the Crown Estate Field nets just now - still a good rare here although expected to increase

A bad year for terns... first the gbbgs, now the ravens taking 2-3 eggs every 10 mins. It's all part of the natural ebb and flow of breeding seasons but it's still hard to watch 😫 #WildBrownsea @dorsetwildlife.bsky.social @dorsetbirdclub.bsky.social @harbourbirds.bsky.social

TASC await a satisfactory response to our letter of 09/03/26 to Nuclear Minister, Lord Vallance - TASC "request that you witness for yourself the rapid erosion occurring...at Thorpeness & in front of the northern end of the Sizewell C site [per photo]" See letter: tasizewellc.org.uk/wp-content/u...

10th May. Turtle Dove still at the Obs today + an unseasonable new Firecrest. Inconclusive, long range views of might have been another Honey Buzzard. Roseate Tern and Balearic Shearwater off the Bill both firsts for the year. Grey Plover new amongst a small increase in waders at Ferrybridge.

Nothing to see here, just 22,400 Sabine's Gulls in one flock... 🤯🇨🇦😍 ebird.org/checklist/S3...

Here's where Louis Mosley, the black-shirt wearing grandson of the black-shirt wearing fascist Oswald Mosley, who runs Palantir in the UK, says how and when they might use your medical data for "immigration enforcement" and, by logical extension, whatever other purposes became convenient.

Nigel Farage blames “computer-hacking” for public revelation of his £5m gift from a billionaire living in Thailand. Gift not disclosed to authorities. Foreign money funds Reform. What return have the tax exiles been promised on their investment? What else has not been disclosed? archive.ph/kowpN

Hundreds of thousands of people attend anti-genocide protests every weekend. If there are incidents of antisemitism on those marches they should be seriously dealt with. "Anti-immigration" protests frequently feature Nazi salutes but Starmer has never suggested banning THOSE marches.

Now do Pheasants.

When Rubio abruptly halted foreign aid last year, cleanup crews in Vietnam were forced to abandon one of the largest chemical spills in the world for weeks. Left exposed: open pits of soil contaminated with dioxin, the deadly byproduct of Agent Orange. From Pulitzer finalist “The End of Aid”:

🧪🧬🌏🦠🌏😡👇

First Balearic Shearwater of the year just gone through east off the Bill

UK Great Spotted Woodpeckers & Blue Tits destroy half of all Willow Tit nests, far higher than elsewhere, far higher losses than other tits. UK has among highest GSW & Blue Tit abundance in the World, as we've created a paradise of endless free food, safe nestboxes, and few nest predators (martens).

The great irony of the Welsh success of Reform, run by millionaire ex-public schoolboys, is that one the greatest Welshmen, & founder of the NHS, warned of this “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies whole art of Tory politics” Aneurin Bevan

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaned on an erroneous claim that Black voter turnout now tops white voter turnout, in his Callais v. Louisiana ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act, reports The Guardian. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Honey Buzzard north at Freshwater Bay a few minutes ago per Jodie

A wall of crypto money is powering Nigel Farage, both politically and personally. And much of the British media just shrugs app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/73421/...

This spring hunting season once again exposed the illegal targeting of protected migratory birds in #Malta. This is only a fraction of the illegal killing taking place in our countryside. @jessikaroswall.ec.europa.eu @euenvironmentandclimate.ec.europa.eu timesofmalta.com/article/trac...

Adult Female Turtle Dove rung at @portlandbirdobs.bsky.social this afternoon. An absolutely stunning bird and my first for several years #UKBirding #DorsetBirds

On a really quiet day for other migrants this Turtle Dove is a very unexpected catch in the Obs mist-nets this afternoon

Your daily Avian Hybrids story! Urbanization promotes hybridization between Common Swift and Pallid Swift avianhybrids.wordpress.com/2023/02/01/u... #ornithology

a few from Ferrybridge this morning - mostly Sanderling and Hares

Another hard year for the #birds & our team. In 2 weeks we removed 1.1 kg of #plastics from Australian #shearwater chicks (>8850 pieces). Balloons clips, clothes pegs, tiling spacers, strapping tape, drink lids, nurdles, toys, cutlery - the list goes on & on 😞 #SeabirdSaturday #PlasticPollution

Very rough count of Sandwich tern nests on Avocet Hide islands gave 230+ Busy times! #WildBrownsea @dorsetwildlife.bsky.social @harbourbirds.bsky.social @dorsetbirdclub.bsky.social

I still don’t understand how Ofcom permits a channel that has “news” in its title to claim not to be “news” so that it doesn’t even have to attempt to be impartial.

Ferrybridge this morning 16 Sanderling, 12 Ringed Plover, 7 Dunlin, 2 Bar-tailed Godwit, flock of 10 Wood Pigeons east, 3 Hares

Superb afternoon butterflying in Tout & King Barrow Quarries on Portland. No sign of Adonis blue or Lulworth skipper but lots of Holly blue, Dingy skipper, Small copper & my first Common blues & Walls of the year. Over the moon to find Small blues in King Barrow. @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social

Please sir, my first past the post electoral system, it is very sick.

Turtle Dove and Stock Doves in the garden today. There was a second Turtle Dove in the Sycamore but it didn't come down to feed.

Anyone still questioning why Farage's Reform did so well? The majority of the British public have no idea how politics work in this country, they listen to our press and its lies and believe every word. If there is to be real change we have to take on our media.

Woodchat Shrike, Steart Marshes, eating a Hairy Dragonfly.

Release the KKKraken... bsky.app/profile/alex...

Unless we change the voting system, we will see this at the next general election as well. With votes split across five or more parties, power can be won on as little as 25% of the vote. This needs to be a wake-up call.

Our new research shows that HPAI increased Northern Gannet mortality by a factor of ~6 and ~4 at two of the world’s largest colonies. We predict this impact will take almost two decades to recover from. #biologicalconservation #seabirds #hpai Full paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2026.111887

'A 2007 analysis...found that wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago were “on a trajectory toward rapid local extinction,” driven by infestations of sea lice from nearby farms.' Then people fought back: story.futureoffood.org/beacons/cana...