Alex Lees
@Alexander_Lees
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Birds, science, politics. Reader @ManMetUni Associate @CornellBirds , Chair BOURC. Usually found in the #PeakDistrict or #Amazonia @RAS_network he/him
Glossop, England
Joined January 2016
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Bats deliver ecosystem services valued in the billions of dollars. The ecological illiteracy of those that govern us is beyond belief.
“Long-eared bats? I hope white-nose syndrome wipes all of them out.”
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Going, going, gone: specialist university courses in the natural sciences - botany, ornithology, biological recording. Demand is seemingly too low...
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Juxtaposed at garden centres: 1) wild bird food to replace insects/plants killed by sprays and powders on sale 2) rodenticides to kill the mammals the bird food attracts 3) bird repellent if the wrong birds show up & 4) fake birds when your garden can no longer support real ones.
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Most people would be up in arms if offered a bag of 'Amazonian rainforest charcoal' but clearly the importance of the temperate zone equivalent 'Irish moss peat' hasn't sunk in.
Thread - my blood is boiling this morning at the local garden centre. Only 2 types of peat-free compost available but stacks of this stuff. Totally unsustainable, why is it still being sold? Why do people buy it? 1)
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The end game for UK conservation should be the opportunity for everyone to see exciting wildlife wherever they live 👇
3 hungry otters turned up in central Salisbury today. They seemed undisturbed by the crowds of shoppers.
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The skin, feathers and tissue of this New Guinean rainforest bird contain a neurotoxin called homobatrachotoxin, by weight one of the most toxic compounds in nature.
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One of the most extraordinary records of vagrancy in Europe ever - an Ovenbird in Romania today.
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Cattle ranchers in southern Amazonia organised a 'Day of Fire' on 10/08/19 to show Brazilian President
#Bolsonaro
that they are "ready to work" by starting at least 124 forest fires around Novo Progresso. Image
@NOAASatellites
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17M UK households spend £250M on 150K tonnes of bird food annually. Great if you are a dominant species like a Blue Tit but what about if you are subordinate species like a Willow Tit?
Thread based on our new paper led by
@JackShutt8
1/
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Don't mess with stoats
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Vilification of British wildlife in the media.
A thread on why it matters 1/
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In the last week or people using disposable barbecues have caused multiple major wildfires in urban and rural locations resulting in massive loss of wildlife habitat, huge carbon emissions, and property damage including loss of people's homes. Thread...
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Even better than aliens Chuck, this is a flock of winged tetrapods descended from theropod dinosaurs. There are around 11,000 species, many of which perform annual migrations, which you would notice if you looked out the window.
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Denial of scientific evidence and rejection of scientific methods is increasingly pervasive - in a new paper, written with Simon Attwood,
@JosBarlow
&
@benphalan
and available here: , we describe the creeping rise of
#ExtinctionDenial
Thread 1/8 👇
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Dear
@peakdistrict
this is not a satisfactory state for a
#NationalPark
in the 21st Century. Lets return it to the
#TemperateRainforest
it once was.
#GoytValley
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Not the view of the Peak District I would have chosen to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Britain's first National Parks; it showcases a homogenous landscape of erosion gullies and burn scars in poor ecological condition - without a hint of clough woodland or montane scrub.
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In a crowded field, I give you the countryside 'dick move of the day' - parking on one of the most biodiverse roadside verges in the Midlands
#G4Challenge
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#MondayMotivation
stop normalising these denuded landscapes and create the economic conditions that can deliver more resilient and biodiverse upland landscapes without comprising rural livelihoods.
Morning! If anything brings you some
#MondayMotivation
this view of walking in the beautiful
#Howgills
will do ☺️
Were you out and about in the
#YorkshireDales
this weekend? Let us know and share your photos ⬇️
📷 Paul Harris
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Mind-blowing record of a Prothonotary Warbler in the vastness of the Southern Ocean
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Wow.
The first case of bilateral gynandromorphic plumage type in the bearded reedling Panurus biarmicus
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Bucket list experience for the Peak District in my lifetime.
Close encounter with a Pine Martin while out picking blackberries today.
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Peregrines nesting in sand dunes is today's avian behavioural plasticity bombshell.
Mooi
@Jacoba_
,
Echt een succesvol nest geweest op een aparte plek voor een slechtvalk. 2 eieren 2 jongen die beide vliegvlug zijn geworden!
#Terschelling
@Sovon
@staatsbosbeheer
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This is why the eradication of introduced rodents from oceanic islands is a conservation priority 👇
First evidence of mouse predation killing adult great albatrosses | |
@BioInvasions
|
#ornithology
#seabirds
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Excited to be able to finally share the cover for our forthcoming book on avian vagrancy written with
@j_gilroy1
which explores pattern and process in the biological phenomenon at the global scale
#ornithology
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Great illustration of how a dog on a lead would result in far less disturbance to wildlife. One study indicated that dog walking in woodland leads to a 35% reduction in bird diversity and 41% reduction in abundance
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Invasive species denial Twitter has peaked. Did some sentient knotweed write this?
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Capitalists: "buy a fake lawn you don't need to mow"
Ecologists: "you'll lose ecosystem services like C-sequestration & water infiltration along with biodiversity"
The Public: "great"... then "why is my lawn dirty?"
Capitalists: "buy a fake lawnmower and a load of chemicals" 1/2
Do my eyes deceive me or is that a machine for maintaining a fake lawn that looks…just…like…the mower the lawn was supposed to free its owners from?
@Shitlawns
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Someone, somewhere on earth released a balloon - for a few seconds of fleeting happiness - a balloon which then travels, perhaps for years - potentially for thousands of kilometres - on ocean currents to eventually end the journey of an albatross that can live seven decades.
Dead Black-browed Albatross with ribbon coming out if its mouth - probably indicating death from ingesting a balloon. New paper suggests 3.4–17.5% of nearshore mortalities in S Hemisphere albatrosses are caused by plastic ingestion
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More emerging evidence for major biodiversity loss with huge consequences for ecosystem services
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Keep dogs on leads in wild spaces.
Let's get outta here! Panicking shorebirds flee dog on Cleethorpes central beach at 11.45am today.
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Vandalism of signs asking dog walkers to keep dogs on a lead seasonally is widespread in the Peak District. When reminded about the rules people are typically abusive. See also open fires.
Sadly a lot of our notices and signs around Wyming Brook, Fox Hagg and Redmires are regularly being vandalised.
We recently replaced these ones only to find them slashed again - with a knife - within days. [1/7]
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That someone is ostensibly paid to shoot Short-eared Owls for a living is everything that is wrong with upland land management - see this long but brilliant and deeply personal account of the work of the RSPB investigations team.
BREAKING - Grouse moor gamekeeper pleads guilty to shooting two Short-eared Owls after being witnessed by RSPB Investigations staff - read our blog and watch our video
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Just leaving this here.
An audacious plan between geneticists and conservationists to being back the extinct Dodo has been announced:
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Alexa, show me a perfect example of how not to interact with large omnivores and lay the groundwork for human-wildlife conflicts....
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Ivory-billed Woodpecker (IBWO) rediscovery is back in the news, a thread on why the species is certainly lost 1/24
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Periodic reminder that there aren't 'local' Short-eared Owls!
EARLY VIEW in
@IBIS_journal
Remote tracking unveils intercontinental movements of nomadic Short-eared Owls (Asio flammeus) with implications for resource tracking by irruptive specialist predators |
John Calladine,
@GunnarThorHall1
et al |
#ornithology
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The conservation status of 11 British bat species is stable or increasing precisely because we have put into place measures to safeguard their roost sites from destruction. Taking away that protection is basically guaranteed to undermine their conservation status 1/2
Bat surveys cause huge delays to projects and make people hate bats. They are a scam whose only purpose is to reward bat surveyors. Abolish them.
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The reason is the 'Identifiable Victim Effect'; the loss of a single tree is relatable, even personal to many, whereas the gradual multifaceted erosion of biodiversity, perpetrated by humanity collectively, is far more difficult to comprehend.
I've heard more coverage today on the mainstream media about the tree that was cut down than the state of nature report. There's a reason for that.
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I wonder at which point the denialists in residence will change their minds about climate change. When their homes are lost?
This happened to us yesterday (Sunday) after just 40 minutes of rain. House unliveable, workshop, gym and car ruined. Uprooted trees upstream and blocked every culvert, nature is impressive. Never happened here in 200+ years. 2 hours earlier,were in paddling pool in heatwave. 🤷♂️
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Much bigger payoff creating flower rich habitats for Goldfinches than feeding them nyjer seed grown in Ethiopia on land that could be growing food for people or remaining natural habitat for wildlife.
Goldfinches in Wildflower Meadow
We’ve seen a concerted effort by the public to increase native wildflower meadows in recent years, a long disappearing habitat. Such habitat helps sustain the colourful and energetic scenes shown here
#rewilding
#goldfinch
#wildflower
#birdart
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Amazing illustration of the relative lack of innate antipredator behaviour in albatrosses. This is why introduced mammals, even mice, can decimate populations.
2/4 11:40
Rangers ensure quiet and calm interactions to minimise any stress for the albatross.
Sometimes a little extra comes their way. Watch for the
#RoyalCam
chick at the end - another sign of healthy growth.
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This image from 1925 by Marcelin Flandrin on a Casablanca-Dakar flight is the last visual record of a wild ‘Barbary’ lion in North Africa.
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Nature is good for people.
People can be bad for nature.
Sometimes even leaving 'just' footprints is too much.
A thread on the science of impacts of human disturbance on wildlife
📷Jonathan Billinger 1/21
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The detonation of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of
#fireworks
to mark the
#NewYear
brings joy to millions whilst simultaneously contributing to atmospheric pollution, killing wildlife and causing considerable suffering to many people and their domestic animals. Thread🧵1/
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Northern Goshawks routinely attack and kill other raptors to the extent that they may even regulate their populations.📷Samuel Paul Galick
@MacaulayLibrary
. An
#IntraguildPredation
thread with some brutal videos 👇
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Lots of talk of food security in the countryside wars: I think we can all agree that not losing precious topsoil is about as a high a priority as they come.
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Wild Boar as a force of nature - fostering a tangled web of life - fantastic artwork by
@jeroenhelmer
sums up this species' ecological keystone role.
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Shameful to see a roaring fire marking the start of the twenties on the
@PeakDistrict
grouse moors above
#Glossop
today. Let’s build cross-party support to ban burning and move towards more sustainable and biodiverse upland landscapes.
Thread 1/6
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As pressure mounts to ban moorland burning, expect to hear desperate industry voices invoking ‘wild fire risk’ to justify business as usual scenarios. This is a misleading and nonsensical argument, which seeks to lock us in to a biologically impoverished future.
Thread. 1/14
The 2018 Saddleworth moor fires provides a clear example of the dangers of not burning.
Game keepers managed some parts of Saddleworth moor with controlled burning, where they were allowed to, but not in a vast ‘no-burn’ policy area where the fire started in long rank heather.
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Zero chance that 8 million people (13%) have seen a Beaver in the wild in Britain. Indeed, I'd be surprised if even 5% of the population had seen a Grass Snake not 29%...
Loving this survey in today’s i newspaper. Apparently 11 percent of Britons have seen a pine marten. I’d be surprised if 11 percent of pine marten have seen another pine marten.
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Working paper title: Human-Goshawk conflict solved by multi-taxon guard-menagerie
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Biodiversity offsets user guide 1) replace ancient woodland with dead saplings shrouded in plastic in a waterlogged field, 2) Claim its 'like for like', 3) check bank balance.
#HS2
#WhiteElephant
One thing that gullible MPs must stop believing is the HS2 claim to be planting thousands of trees to replace the woodlands and forests being destroyed. HS2 plants tiny saplings, far too close together for any to thrive, then walk away with zero maintenance. This is the reality.
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My garden has more Dunnocks than the Amazon.
Glenogil Estate has almost double the number of breeding pairs of golden plovers as there are in the whole of Germany.
#waders
#MoorlandMeansGreen
@AGMG_UK
@gmg_uk
@TomatinMg
@SpeysideMG
@sumgroupuk
@ScotGamekeepers
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As
#Walrus
fever grips Orkney a reminder that the species is only confined to the high Arctic because of historical persecution and is a future passive
#rewilding
target for the Northern Isles
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A bit of a change from my normal breakfast routine this morning....
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Honey Badger fights 3 Leopards at the same time, wins.
A sighting like no other..One honey badger fights against three leopards in Sabi Sand Nature Reserve 🐆
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Sanitisation of the tide line is a new low.
Waders feeding along the beach....but not for long, before Mablethorpe's sand vacuum comes along and steals breakfast one strip at a time
@RareBirdAlertUK
@Lincsbirding
@waderquest
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Would be great to see Kinder Scout receive this makeover.
Good news ☀️ Thanks to your searches, we've made huge progress in Brazil's Atlantic Forest since 2017. Your trees here protect 60% of the country's endangered plant and animal species! 💚
#rainforest
#makeover
#brazil
#beforeandafter
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Dogs on f*cking leads.
My first ever trip to Ripple GPs was ruined by an out of control spaniel swimming out to the island and eating a Great Crested Grebe nest. This shows how destructive dogs are to our wild birds and even island nesters are not safe.
@WorcsBirding
@RareBirdAlertUK
@BirdGuides
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An incredible painting. It seems impossibly long ago and yet the last Irish Great Auk died only 190 years ago, potentially half way through the life of some Greenland Sharks prowling the depths of those same seas today.
Great Auk colony on the Skerries. Naturalists have speculated over the years that these birds bred here on the north coast of Ireland. This string of little islands would be particularly accessible for a flightless bird.
#paleoart
#portrush
#northcoast
#wildlifeart
#extinct
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Image top right is an Orca with its head in a Blue Whale's mouth eating its tongue.
Happy to share our new publication reporting on the first records of
#killerwhales
predating on the largest animals on the planet- blue whales. This was a collaborative effort between scientists & tourism operators.The
#Bremer
#orca
yet again teaching us something new! Link below
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Representative rare/lost English fauna occurring just ≈150 miles from the Kent coast in the
#Ardennes
- possible in the uplands here if we create space for
#rewilding
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Spent the morning doing surveys high in the Pennines and saw some of the last breeding Twite in England.
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More evidence that we have mismeasured the global extinction crisis since the Late Pleistocene: new study estimates we have lost 12% of all bird species,
@guardianeco
story:
#Ornithology
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This is brilliant. Dogs on leads or Mega-Brent comes to tea.
How would you feel about disruption to your meal? Watch the brent goose turning the tables on us in our new video series "You are a guest - this is where I live"
@ProwadLink
@WWF_Deutschland
#waddensea
#behave
#naturetravel
#worldheritage
#nationalpark
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The scope of the environmental challenges we face in the UK illustrated with a selection of stuff I saw on Twitter today.
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Can't press the like button enough. Get one of these or don't let your cat outside off a leash.
Spent the last 2 Saturdays with
@moreton_birding
designing and building a custom cat enclosure with 15m access tunnel for fellow herts birder
@Marksut1969
. This will keep his cat and the local birds safe! Safe to say his cat Cookie was very impressed!
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So now we KNOW that fireworks are a CATASTROPHIC agent of wildlife disturbance, do we act on this information?
So what can the radar tell us? Well, just after midnight the radar ‘lights up’ because almost 400,000 (!!!) birds immediately flee to the sky! Over about an hour, and looking at the entire country, MILLIONS of birds are seriously disturbed by fireworks.
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What do a hurricane, a moth and solar storms have in common? Answer - they have all likely contributed to an exceptional displacement of migrant North American birds in Europe this autumn 🧵1/17
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Imagine someone telling you 30 years ago that by 2023 we would have roosts of 600 Cattle Egrets in Somerset and breeding Glossy Ibises in Cambridgeshire, or that Brown Booby had become a useful year-tick or that it is easier to see Bee-eater than Twite in Norfolk
#ClimateChange
I rarely see Cattle Egret, so really enjoyed watching 40+ on Tealham Moor, Somerset this afternoon. But this number couldn’t prepare me for the quite overwhelming spectacle of the roost at Noah’s Lake, Shapwick Heath, where I estimated 500-600 roosted! Vid is front edge of roost.
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Garden-based birders have in four nights revolutionized our understanding of the nocturnal overland migration of a secretive seaduck - the Common Scoter, an unexpected
#lockdowneffect
. Full story:
#ornithology
w/
@ecoacou_ollie
,
@dbradnum
&
@JamieDunning
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This textbook Extinction Denial from Matt Ridley necessitates a thread on why he is wrong about insect
#extinctions
1/10
I looked up each of the 63 insect species (~0.006%) that have gone extinct. Most disappeared before WW2 and most of them were on islands. Some were only ever recorded as a single specimen, including "Ridley's stick insect" (no relation) seen once in Singapore in 1907.
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A paper predicting House Bunting colonisation of Europe was published on [checks notes] 17th May 2023. A breeding pair was discovered in southern Spain a month (!) later . Short🧵on
#ClimateChange
driven range expansion in African species
#Ornithology
1/
House Bunting has bred in Europe for the first time, with a pair raising two youngsters in Algeciras in southern Spain:
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Porch Goshawk ought to be a regular sight throughout the UK, making a dent in the superabundant pigeon and corvid population. Illegal persecution continues to limit their spread.
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This morning a Curlew called for the last time in the Peak District.
In watching it hit a power line, a little bit of me died inside too.
Thread.
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Also a consequence of an entire genre of wildlife television where presenters needlessly handle wildlife.
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Iconic image depicting tropical forest biodiversity in the Anthropocene
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A reminder that as far as some rare breeding birds are concerned, photographers are the new egg collectors
#Schedule1
Disturbing news of several photographer's flattening reeds again today so they can get to the waters edge to photograph the BNG's, one was reported laying on his front within 10ft of the grebes, please report to RSPB rangers if you see this behaviour
@RSPBAireValley
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The partial recovery of populations of many of the great whales is perhaps one of the greatest successes of the conservation movement. The news that BLUE WHALES have been seen in the NORTH SEA is thus guarded
#ConservationOptimism
material!
@GeorgeMonbiot
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c 550 pairs of Hen Harrier in the UK in 2020
0 pairs of Montagu's Harrier in the UK 2020
(down from a 20th century peak of 30 pairs in 1953)
A thread for
#HenHarrierDay
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New
@_BTO
#Birdtrends
data makes for grim viewing for some species - Chaffinch is still in freefall; clean and move your birdfeeders daily or take them down
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Our
#NationalParks
may be subjectively beautiful, but objectively they are often terrible places for
#wildlife
- we can do SO much better. thanks to Claire
@BBCMarshall
and Anne-Marie Bullock for letting me make this point on
@BBCNews
and
@BBCRadio4
1/2
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'Eliminates insects fast' for seven quid you can erase the web of life in your garden
@GeorgeMonbiot
New in from the War On Nature: you can buy light traps with added bait to attract loads of insects into your garden & kill them all indiscriminately, by the jar full, day & night. Deliberately. How is this allowed?
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Meet 'Omid' the Siberian Crane. Omid means 'hope' in Persian but hope has forsaken Omid as he is the last individual of the now functionally extinct western population of Siberian Cranes. He has been migrating alone between between Russia and Iran for 14 years.
"امید" باز هم به ایران بازگشت
امید برای چهاردهمین سال متوالی به مازندران آمد.
تنها بازمانده گله غربی دُرنای سیبری، عصر امروز برای زمستان گذرانی به تالاب فریدونکنار و سرخرود مهاجرت کرد.
درنای امید ۱۴ سال است که بهصورت انفرادی مهاجرت میکند./شبکه خبر
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Dear
@marksandspencer
your 'ideal gift for bird watchers'
is by far the most error-strewn piece of instant ornithological rubbish I have ever seen marketed h/t
@J__me
1/
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This is wild: insular Tristan Thrushes routinely kill and eat storm-petrels
#ExtremePredation
@TetZoo
On the south Atlantic breeding colonies on Tristan da Cunha, White-bellied Storm-Petrels face an unusual predator, Tristan Thrush, which can pin down and kill adults. Read more about the storm-petrel in the new account update, a partnership with
@ROC_CL
:
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Monday’s Blyth’s Reed Warbler was my 3rd ‘sibe’ around MMU campus in central Manchester – a quick thread 🧵 on potential urban vagrant traps 1/
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A couple and their 6 off the lead dogs disturbing breeding waders in Longdendale yesterday.
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Span Moor
@peakdistrict
this morning. The concept of 'oustanding natural beauty' is subjective. Objectively, this is a publicy-funded socioecological disaster.
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How about we stop illegally suppressing Golden Eagle populations so they can eat the 'excess' hares. The eagles will never retake lost ground, like here in the
@peakdistrict
, if their prey base is absent or depleted.
2/ Hares, when reaching high density through being protected, suffer disease-related die offs from gut parasites. Sometimes they do not recover their past populations.
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#Biodiversity
is seriously imperiled, but we can turn the tide. A
#ConservationOptimism
reminder that many UK wetland birds are resurgent following an end to exploitation and massive investment in habitat creation 1/2
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This is the Nevern Estuary in Pembrokeshire, a would-be haven for wintering wildfowl and waders but also a coveted place for people to walk their dogs. The end result is birds disturbed/excluded across about 90% of the site whilst the tide allows access. Zonation needed.
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The post pandemic loss of Common Sandpipers and their inordinately joyful song, has hollowed out the experience of walking round my local reservoir. It is seemingly a direct consequence of a step change in shoreline disturbance from dogs, which is now chronic.
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