A newly discovered archaeal cell has a tiny genome and can’t metabolize biomolecules. It’s upending biologists’ definition of a living thing. “These types of organisms have been found before, but not as extreme as this,” said microbiologist Thijs Ettema.

Here's a backlit GND from the Stour earlier in the week. Beak open between dives. #BirdArt

A Northern Hawk-owl contemplating what's for supper tonight... #Birds #owls #NaturePhotography #BirdsSeenIn2025 🪶🦉🇫🇮

1/ 📢Looking for counters for the International Swan Census (ISC) on the weekend of 17th-18th January 2026 in Northumberland. Please visit the vacant site map to request a site near you: app.bto.org/gsmp/public/... #Ornithology #UKBirding

I want someone to make a Merlin app but it's just Mark Catesby's descriptions of birds from 1732. "This Bird, by its ungrateful brawling Noise, seems at Variance and displeased with all others" is a great field mark

Last week on the North York Moors (Northeast England) - before the weather turned! The freezing cold will probably finish off most of the fungi; hopefully the birds will move out of the worst of it🤞 🪶🐡 #art #nature

After the initial excitement, Lina started to think that the first snow of the winter in Durham is quite cold and wet. #labrador #dogs

Distinctive 1w Russian Common Gull (heinei) candidate at Frieston Res this aft, seemed to tick all the boxes. #LincsBirding @lincsbirding.bsky.social

A Tufted Puffin was photographed in a Puffin colony in the North Atlantic this summer, marking the latest in a growing series of records of the species in Atlantic waters:

This is such a cool study. A parasitic ant queen tricks worker ants into murdering their own queen, so the parasite can take over the colony.

The late Bluethroat at South Gare today afternoon. It was feeding actively, but the weather over the next few days doesn’t look good for it. #NEbirding @teesbirds.bsky.social @nybirdnews.bsky.social 🪶

Bluethroat still at Cabin Rocks and Black Redstart at the boat yard, South Gare (2-3pm). #NEbirding

Durham hosts the Lumiere festival for the last time this weekend, but #TeamMoth can, of course, set up an exciting light installation on any night! 1 Mottled Umber so far, so the worst outcome possible is avoided.

Firecrest at Putting Green, Hartlepool Headland. #NEbirding @teesbirds.bsky.social

When you are really really small, flying becomes more like swimming, or guided floating.

Glass is half full -vibes with the very nice (both the taste and the label) bird-themed bitter tonight😋. #birds #beer

Jackdaws by the north Winterborne chalk stream.

🐞🧬🦅 join us for a PhD position researching how birds evolve resistance to prey toxins. If you’re excited about wild chemical arms races, we’d love to hear from you. @shabmohammadi.bsky.social @livuni-ives.bsky.social @livuni-ismib.bsky.social @mpi-ce.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

The impacts of avian influenza are profound and far reaching. Hopefully 🇮🇸 Gyrfalcons will recover in time but this is near catastrophic #RaptorResearch 🌎 🪶 Avian flu taking a severe toll on Iceland’s falcon population icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/20...

New research from our Biosciences Department and @btobirds.bsky.social shows that hotter European summers are reducing migratory birds’ ability to fuel up for their long journeys. Read more: durham.ac.uk/news-events/... #DUresearch

The tail works like a propeller when there’s a treat on offer for a quick response to a recall. #labrador #dogs

Some quick record photos of the Pallid Swift at Whitburn this morning as it was circling over the houses in the village. A great find by @pratorum2112.bsky.social ! #NEbirding #RareBirdsUK @teesbirds.bsky.social 🪶

I really need to get to bed, but I just poked my head out the back door again. This is the view from my deck. All of this is looking south. When the geomagnetic storms are like this, the oval overshoots me and stretches into the US, which is why so many are seeing it tonight. #aurora

Top detour thanks to Great Bustard Group on way back from some non-birdy doings down south- these two big boyz on Salisbury Plain standing tall in sluicing rain I guess so water doesn't puddle on their mighty backs #BirdArt

RED-BACKED SHRIKE - An adult from the spring, watercolour on Arches paper for the cover of a publication. #birds #ukbirding #birdart

Looking for a PhD opportunity? I'm hoping to recruit someone to my group at Durham University to work on a project combining fieldwork and labwork to study speciation in rubyspot damselflies: iapetus.ac.uk/studentships... Get in touch if you want to chat!

I found today a couple of Aspen leaves with apparent Ectoedemia argyropeza mines at Rainton Meadows NR. I’ve not seen them before and there are not too many records in VC66, so any opinions are welcome! #TeamMoth

One of the reasons why Finland is the happiest country in the world is that the public broadcaster Yle sends a live feed of the first 8 weeks of a pack of puppies every fall. It’s already the fifth edition of ”Finland’s most therapeutic live feed”. This is what I call value for my tax money

A long way from home. Ever so elusive Hume's Leaf Warbler, in Finnish literally Kashmir oven bird. A sort of influx of them in double digits this autumn. #BirdsSeenIn2025 🇫🇮🪶🐦 #NaturePhotography

Olive-backed Pipit today afternoon at South Gare. Quite elusive bird, that occasionally moved up from the high grass and showed well in bushes. Thanks to the finder! #NEbirding #RareBirdsUK @teesbirds.bsky.social @nybirdnews.bsky.social

For my N. Hemisphere friends: This weekend would be an absolutely brilliant time to get your flu and covid shots. You will get a massive protective antibody surge right as holiday socializing is ramping up flu and covid activity. 15 minutes at the pharmacy could save you a week of misery.

I bought these old RSPB magazines for their CF Tunnicliffe cover pictures. They look so good together (with that delicious typeface!)

Sketch book Grackle, Calshot, Hants - a bird with plenty of character #Boat-tailedGrackle

Winter Feeding Boosted Finland's White-tailed Eagles - But Only Slightly New research confirms that decades of supplementary feeding helped more young eagles survive to adulthood, aiding the species' remarkable recovery. www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/W...

Here’s the finished Siberian Thrush drawing. Bringing it to life on paper was a great way to relieve the memories of a really special bird! Coloured pencil on paper. Reference photo Jake K. #birding 🪶

Last night 10 of 8 sp moths. Australian Orange-tip (Tachystola acroxantha) was a new garden ✅, they have started to spread in the county in the recent years. Juniper Carpet was nfy and Willow Beauty a very late record. Durham VC66. #TeamMoth @teesbirds.bsky.social

Plenty of rain last night so only 5 moths bothered to check our trap. Brick was a year ✅ so it was worth having a go. Feathered Thorn, MdJ, Lesser YU and LBAM were the supporting cast. Durham VC66. #TeamMoth @teesbirds.bsky.social

Singularly impressive bird-finding and rarity-documentation - a visibly-migrating Black-faced Bunting photographed this morning in the Netherlands 🪶 www.dutchbirding.nl/gallery/deta...

Lost or Leading the Way? Rare Birds May Signal Shifting Migration Routes www.newswise.com/articles/los... #songbirds #migration #vagrants #ornithology #populationecology #speciesdistribution

The latest report from the RBBP, Rare Breeding Birds in the UK in 2023, is out now in British Birds. It reports on the 104 species and races of rare breeding birds recording breeding, or showing signs of breeding, in 2023. Read the summary at rbbp.org.uk/2023-report-... #ornithology #ukbirds 🧵[1/15]

Pirri-Pirri Bur, Pampas grass, Wireweed: all plants from the S Hemisphere that are establishing in the UK. Can we explain current and predict future invasions by S Hemisphere plants? Apply for this NERC ACCE+ PhD project to find out: tinyurl.com/374ty2b7 Please Repost! @acce-dla.bsky.social

A click look elsewhere on social media reveals a lot of AI slop bird 'photos', which are becoming more and more convincing, a worry for biological recording in general and not just #Ornithology

Desperately seeking three French hens and a partridge in a pear tree to join these two Oriental Turtle Doves. Yes, it was back to the drawing board overnight and a retrospective ID on one of the 'turtle' doves we'd already retrospectively identified yesterday. A thread...

Cool rotifer feeding with it's cilia beating 🐙🧪

I saw again this afternoon the partially leucistic Jackdaw that has been hanging around Neville’s Cross, Durham, for a few years now. #NEbirding @teesbirds.bsky.social @durhambirdclub.bsky.social 🪶

After a recent early morning airport drop off, I continued down to Wexford for the first time in years. I was delighted to find a juvenile American Golden Plover at Tacumshin, before a harrier spectacle. The male Northern Harrier joined a few Hen and Marsh Harriers as the sun set.

A mixed pair consisting of a Great Northern Diver and a Black-throated Diver successfully bred in the Scottish Highlands in 2024 and again in 2025, it has been revealed:

Do you have 10 minutes to help an @edinburghnapier.bsky.social MSc student complete her final research project? Please consider letting us know your opinions towards herring gulls, by completing this short questionnaire tinyurl.com/tfntmfbk Thank you!