Cracking start to 2026 birding with 101 species around Colchester area, mostly Abberton and Fingringhoe. Hen Harrier, Peregrine, Gtr and Lesser Scaup, Black- and Red-necked Grebe, Tundra Bean and White-fronted Geese, 5 Smew inc 3 stunning males, close Little Stints, 3 Bewicks and plenty more!

www.artsobservasjoner.no/Image/3005980 This is news to me. The regular Northumberland wintering Black Scoter spends the summer off Varanger, Norway.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! Descriptions and/or photos are required for a number of Essex rarities from 2024. The full list can be found at ebws.org.uk/2024descript... If you saw any of these, please submit a description - there's a video on the link that explains more. Thank you #essexbirding

Sunday 7th anyone visiting wigborough Church Arctic warbler please note we are keeping the church side of carpark clear for churchgoers from 10.30am.extra parking been arranged opposite first entrance(gate is open please park in there only)noParking on vergeFrontGates ) #Essexbirdnews #EssexBirding

A superb bird and a brilliant way to end the week. Echo the congrats to Chris and Sean, excellent find.

Another birding paper! 🐦Where do the Nearctic landbirds that show up in Europe each autumn come from? We usually assume they come from NE populations, pushed off course by bad weather - but is that the whole story? #ornithology 1/3 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Based on plumage variation, we are confident there were 9+ red-footed falcons at Carlton Marshes over the last three days. 2 adult male 3 females seen hunting dragons together, with at least 4 sub-adult males.

Interesting to see the origin of this bird - a little disappointing but unsurprising that it's of captive origin... #suffolkbirding

Calling all #ukbirding County Recorders interested in cleaning and extracting data from eBird. I have updated the app I developed with @ollie333.bsky.social, and moved it over to a new hosting platform. You can now find it here: dbradnum-ebirdcountyrecordcleaner.share.connect.posit.cloud

Excellent birding at Abberton in long-awaited sunshine today: Black-throated Diver, drake Lesser and 4 Greater Scaup, drake and redhead Smew, 4 Bewicks Swan, 9 Med Gull, 10 Black necked and single Slav Grebe, and a somewhat Lesser Scaupy female Aythya hybrid! #essexBirding

Shore Lark still present on Stone Pt, East Mersea and showing well at times in spite of dogs.... #EssexBirding

At Abberton, from LDLH causeway then flew towards Lodge Lane area

A rather grey and dreary day weather-wise, but brightened first by a superb (unusually vocal) Pallas's Warbler at the Naze, and then by finding a drake Lesser Scaup below Abberton church - perhaps one of the 5 birds from previous winter? Also 3 Bewicks and a female Greater Scaup there. #essexBirding

Cool bit of data visualisation showing communities and clusters in the 13 million Bluesky users - joelgustafson.com/posts/2024-1... Sounds like the full graph will only load in full Chrome browser (rather than on a phone)... But if you do, there is already a clear UK Birding cluster!

Interesting #birdHybrid reported recently from Rainham Marshes #EssexBirding #londonBirding, looks good to me for Mallard x Gadwall as suggested - though welcome informed opinion from others on this? ebird.org/checklist/S2...

I'm sorry for the current SkyFeed outage, I'm pretty sure it's caused by @fly.io which I use for smart caching of feeds. It usually works great. See https://status.flyio.net/ for status

🧵 How to get connected in Bluesky without upsetting anyone - Some thoughts on hashtags & feeds related to UK wildlife. Long thread! Hashtags do as you'd expect. Feeds usually use hashtags, but are much more powerful: multiple selection criteria, incl. user lists, hashtags, +ve & -ve keywords, etc

About 80 species seen with 10 miles of home today, highlights a ringtail Hen Harrier and 8 field-stalking Gt White Egrets at Copt Hall, a smart adult Caspian Gull and a scruffy juv Spoonbill at Abberton, and swirling waders and a calling Redpoll at Fingringhoe. #essexBirding

Just a reminder to Norfolk birders joining bluesky there's a Norfolk birding feed you can add to your feeds, if you use #NorfolkBirding it will also be picked up by the national UK birding feed too, no need to use both hashtags.

What on earth has happened?! The sky has turned a strange colour and there is a big yellow ball up there... Black Redstart on shore nr E hide the best so far at Minsmere #suffolkBirding

If anyone's interested I've created a Norfolk birding feed to bring together bird news posts from Norfolk. Use the hashtag #Norfolkbirding

Pleasant day of #SuffolkBirding with a few decent scarce migrants. Confiding Hawfinch at Minsmere could be found by listening for haw seeds crunching! Also elusive Temmincks, Whimbrel, smart Redstart, Wheatear, Reed Wblr, Casp and YL Gulls here. Earlier, nice Ring Ouzel at Thorpeness but little else

Plenty to see on a sunny stroll around Old Hall today, 79spp in total. 14 Spotshank and 11 Greenshank on Abbotts Hall breach at high tide, 3 juv Little Stint and 7 Yellow Wag on Bale Field, plenty of Hobby action and - best of all, and unexpected - a superb juv Merlin atop a hawthorn. #essexBirding

You may have seen a video or two cross your timeline already… our team is putting the final touches on this feature as we finish up testing! Video is almost ready for you 🤞

Excellent morning at the Naze with a decent scatter of migrants still about. Brief but close views of mobile Red-backed Shrike early on, followed by 3 Pied and 1 Spotted Fly, 1w male Redstart feeding on the beach, 2 Whinchat, Willow Warbler and 2 Garden Warblers amongst Sylvias. #essexbirding

With a steady increase in birders coming across to BlueSky, I've set up a feed for Essex birding - welcome! Direct link is in the reply below, so you can easily pin this. Any posts tagged with #essexBirding will get picked up, and flow into the UK birding feed - no need to add other tags.

I've had a first go at setting up a feed for Suffolk birding - please search for the feed, pin and like it! Anything tagged with #SuffolkBirding will get picked up, and flow through into the UK birding feed. hopefully can tweak as required as more people use it.

@applewildlife.bsky.social Any thoughts about the weird hybrid here? Looks very strange indeed...

The current SkyFeed infrastructure can't handle the extra load (more than 4x) caused by all the new users. I'm currently setting up two new powerful servers, which should have enough resources to get all feeds back online later today. Thanks for your patience and sorry for the downtime 😊

If anyone else is having trouble with feeds this morning, looks like it's a capacity issue with SkyFeed (which a lot of people use to build their feeds). Issue is probably driven by huge influx of folk to Bluesky from Brazil, where X is blocked.

Heads up @darylrhymes.bsky.social @swallowbirding.bsky.social @bakerboybirding.bsky.social @etilburybirder.bsky.social @birdbrainuk.bsky.social @birdingtothemax.bsky.social @simonpatient1.bsky.social @merseabirder.bsky.social @jamiedunning.bsky.social - pls do share onwards and pass on any feedback.

With a steady increase in birders coming across to BlueSky, I've had a first go at setting up a feed for Essex birding - please search for the feed, pin and like it! Anything tagged with #essexBirding will get picked up, and flow through into the UK birding feed.

Testing out #essexBirding feed https://bsky.app/profile/darylrhymes.bsky.social/post/3l2x7yl5sx72c

No photos of seabirds themselves from Cornwall (though some of the views were superb - Sabines Gull close enough to see the yellow tip to the bill!) but here are a few scenic pics. Beautiful place, and I wish it wasn't such a trek to get down there...

Back home after superb seawatching trip to Cornwall, it's been lovely to pop in to Giffords Flash (Essex/Suffolk border) a couple of times. This evening, finally connected with Osprey while a Wood Sand Chiff-if-iffed about with Green and Commons. LRP, Greenshank, Mandarin, Kingfisher too #ukbirding

I settled down here at 6am this morning, and spent about 13 hrs in situ (barring a quick cafe dash for pasties). It worked out rather well... A Wilson's Petrel, about 300 Cory's Shearwaters, a handful of Great, Sooty, Balearic Shearwaters, great company. Oh, and found a South Polar Skua! #ukbirding

Beautiful start to the day standing on a sunny heath with singing Redstarts, Woodlark, Dartford Warbler, Mistle Thrush all around - hard to beat! #ukbirding

Successful early morning wander around the Danbury Ridge woodlands, with a calling and drumming Lesser Spot. Loads of its larger relatives and quite a few Nuthatch too. #ukbirding

Finally feeling spring-like today, with 7 spp of butterflies out and about (OTip, Sml White, Brimstone, Peacock, RAdmiral, Comma, HBlue). Some nice birding too, with 8 Crossbills, 3 Mandarin, 2 Tree Pipit and Woodlark, 2 Tree Sparrow, 6+ Mealy Redpolls and plenty of Chiffs and Blackcap #ukbirding

They say one Swallow doesn't make a summer: well illustrated by my first of 2024 going through Abberton Reservoir just ahead of a hail shower!! Still lovely to see, as were 9 Sand Martin. Marsh Harrier making a valiant attempt at taking Tufted Duck off the water also noteworthy. #ukbirding

Remember, eBird will be down from 10am Tuesday 19th March for 48 hours: ebird.org/news/server-... #ukbirding #twolongdays

A still and peaceful late afternoon at Abberton, though no signs of spring bar a few Chiffchaffs. Winter birds continue to hang on, including the flock of 5 Lesser Scaup, the ultra-mobile Black-throated Diver and a beautiful Short-eared Owl. Bullfinch and Turnstone were unusual here. #ukbirding