Arrived @fairislebirdobs.bsky.social for week's birding with @tombedford.bsky.social yesterday eve. Smooth journey with spectacular views from plane of Sumburgh Head & Fair Isle looming out of the south. Short pre-dinner birding produced Barred Warbler, Common Rosefinch & Lapland Bunting - not bad!

Evening trip out to Farmoor with @eliotmiller.bsky.social @josephtobias.bsky.social failed with Caspian Gull, but a nice surprise when a juvenile Knot materialised almost next to us in the dusk

Quick walk around the woods just now, noticed a commotion at the big old beech. A flock of tits were jumping in and out of the water filled crotch (I believe thats the technical term)

Coming to the UK this autumn? The 3 WP records of Dark-sided Flycatcher make a triangle with a blank area with the Northern Isles at its centre that needs filling! All 3 records between 1-6 Oct; all since 2012. Interestingly mainland USA 1st record in California 4 days ago ebird.org/checklist/S2...

More AI slop... Googled the 2000 Honey-buzzard influx and guess who's interpretation of this dominates the AI summary

Early evening along the windswept causeway at Farmoor and a moulting adult Little Stint was quite unexpected compared to the pristine juveniles we more usually get here

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...

Thanks to Milos Krist & Peter Adamik and their super local team for organising this meeting and and hosting us so successfully in Olomouc last week: a resounding success!

A Manx Shearwater dodging windsurfers at Farmoor today - presumably displaced by yesterday's weather. Mid September is a classic time for these to show up here, a long way inland

A family event yesterday with visit to the opening of the Frances Sheldon Centre at @mountbattenhants.bsky.social - named in memory of my mother’s visionary leadership in the field of psychosocial palliative care. Very moving to catch up with so many people whose lives she touched here

Come and work with us! Three new academic posts (including Animal Behaviour) and superb facilities in the new Life & Mind Building

Some nice birding on the way to & from the Conference with the highlight great views of 12 Red-footed Falcons hunting over stubble south of Olomouc. A Great Snipe flushed here was a nice surprise

Excellent talks from @davididiaquez.bsky.social @jorgensoraker.bsky.social @celestineadelmant.bsky.social and Daisy Abraham

We had a fabulous time at the 10th Hole-nesting Birds meeting in Oloumouc, Czechia this week with six members of the group attending hnbirds2025.bsky.social

A massive ~12k pairs of Glossy Ibis bred in Doñana National Park this year with very high breeding success due to good winter rains. Marshes now dry and birds dispersing north aided by favourable winds. Conceivable that some will stay to breed in UK/Ireland in 2026 #UKbirding #Ornithology

Outstanding Damson crop this autumn- a few percentage of the crop from a fairly small tree. They gave this beautiful pruinosity when ripe.

Good to catch up with an Osprey at Farmoor this morning - thanks to Dave Lowe for finding it perched in Wytham Woods - it then briefly fished before heading off to the South

Amazing! Full article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Three Wood Sandpipers that dropped into Otmoor this morning were a welcome sign of ongoing wader passage - thought I'd missed this species locally this year. Also, finally, saw Common Crane here!

Great customer service from Swarovski - binocular rain guard broke on Weds - simple web form to submit request. Replacement (no charge) arrived this morning 🤩

Horrible weather - half dark with heavy rain, but exciting to see this juv Marsh Sandpiper early this morning at Pit 60 near Standlake (found yesterday but not confirmed till after dark). A massive grip-back for those of us that missed the only previous Oxfordshire county record back in August 2007!

Back from Sweden and relieved to see the two juvenile Little Stints at Farmoor had hung on for a bit - lurking in the far NW side where sun angle made photos difficult. Quite different-looking birds - one a lot further on with post juv moult.

Well done @devisatarkar.bsky.social!!

Quite shocked by this Common Buzzard yesterday at Falsterbo - dark chocolate bib & pale underparts almost like a Swainson’s Hawk. Anybody else seen this plumage variant?

Superb close views of this migrant juv Merlin at Falsterbo yesterday

Stopped at Falsterbo on way back from Sweden yesterday. Always a treat to see some real raptor passage - a reasonable trickle of Sparrowhawk, Osprey, Marsh & Hen Harrier and almost 200 Honey-buzzards

We're delighted that Dr Cait Newport and Dr Salma Akter have been awarded Royal Society University Research Fellowships Cait will explore how fishes navigate in turbid water, while Salma will explore how plants respond to environmental stresses like drought and flooding 👇 bit.ly/4mQ6nDL

Juvenile Little Stint showing ridiculously well, as they always do, at Farmoor this afternoon - thanks to the finder #ukbirding

First juvenile Curlew Sandpipers starting to come through in Sweden now with 5 at Hjälstaviken with @sjportugal.bsky.social last night. Interesting to see them associating much more with Ruff than with the dozen or so Dunlin at the same site.

First time I've actually seen the amazing 'butterfly' wing-clapping display of Honey-buzzard from this striking dark male at Ledskär in North Uppland, Sweden, last week

Wow! First genetically confirmed Willow Tit x Marsh Tit hybrid, Norway: link.springer.com/article/10.1... I wrote in my book that previous hybridisation evidence is quite poor, so genetics needed: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/marsh-tit... To me, looks like a Willow Tit with a bill spot. Birder's nightmare!

Metathugs Science, metascience, metametascience, *critical* metascience, and how science's greatest strengths are its greatest weaknesses. Gloomier than usual and it's only Wednesday. diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/m...

Enjoying some quality holiday on the Uppland coast in Sweden & daily visits to Ledskär - great wader site with good numbers & constant turnover. Notable arrival of juvenile Ruff & Spotted Redshank this evening - 17 of the latter. Rarely see such numbers in the UK these days ebird.org/checklist/S2...

An early evening Shag at Farmoor. Stop sniggering at the back!

Autumnal scene on the edge of Otmoor this morning with a male Common Redstart in among the brambles. One of those species that no longer breeds locally but has traditional stop-off sites, particularly in autumn.

Early this morning #Whimbrel POTSKAR landed in Guinea, W Africa, after flying 7000+km from St-Petersburg, Russia. It took POTSKAR 5.5 days of NON-STOP flight, varying altitude from 10s of meters over the Baltic and the Med, to >5km over land. #ornithology www.globalflywaynetwork.org/tracks/speci...

Quite apart from the important point about LLMs, this post deserves sharing simply for this awesome bit of leaf masquerade by a Chinese spider

Others have noted that this means foreign-born people are LESS likely than UK-born people to be in prison. What I want to note is that The Times is now referring to foreign-born UK citizens as ‘foreigners’. This includes Boris Johnson, Sir Mo Farah, Emma Watson, Rory Stewart and little old me.

🚨 First PhD chapter is out! My work thus far, with @andy2dobson.bsky.social We found that formerly common species have declined the fastest, on average. 📄 North American bird declines are driven by reductions in common species | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Really pleased to see Daisy Abraham’s first paper out. About something we know very little about: what happens when birds “divorce”. We had extensive discussion with one reviewer about whether this was the appropriate term to use. “Permanent breaking of pair bond” feels too much of a mouthful…

A super write-up of our recent Swedish birding trip by @tmbirding.bsky.social - excellent birds & atmosphere

Drought? What drought?! Mud found no problem…

Always a pleasure to get the annual Oxfordshire bird report with the traditional spectacular Ian Lewington cover. This one in particular bringing back memories of the juv male Pallid Harrier at Otmoor in Sept 2023 - I have almost identical photo of the bird!

View of the entrance to the Life & Mind Building - home for @biology.ox.ac.uk for the future. The eagle-eyed may spot & understand significance of a Ginkgo. Some striking perspective through the cycle racks outside…

One of 3 Black-tailed Godwits at @rspbotmoor.bsky.social this evening. This female ringed as a first year female in Suffolk in Dec 2017 has wintered Orwell/Stour estuaries every winter & been seen in Iceland in 2022 & 2023 breeding seasons. Amazingly quick details on 140 resightings from Pete Potts

I wrote a little bit about a cool recent paper looking at heritability estimates from very large registry data, and how we still really don't understand why outcomes track in families. A short 🧵:

Fabulous to see the major new Lars Jonsson exhibition in Stockholm (till Oct) - lots of new material as well as some iconic field guide plates from the past: they are superb in close up liljevalchs.se/en/kalender/...

Lots of other good birds in Sweden including singing Blyth's Reed W, Icterine W, Black Woodpecker, Capercaillie, Red-backed & Great-Grey Shrike, Honey-buzzard, Caspian Tern, Cranes, WT Eagle, many waders moving already etc: eBird trip report here: ebird.org/tripreport/3...

A full-on Gull Experience to Remember in Stockholm on Tuesday with stunning views of the adult Ring-billed Gull that is spending the summer in central Stockholm, @tmbirding.bsky.social up close and personal with Baltic Gull & Lars Jonsson's incredible Wall of Gulls at his current exhibition