Mark Gurney

One for the occasional series of #ornithology papers you need in your life but might not have read - Common/Spotted Sandpiper flight style as an antipredator behaviour.
academic.oup.com/auk/article-...

Solanum revealed 2 species: nigrum & nitidibaccatum, Black & Green Nightshade. Apart from the obvious berry colour, it always remained possible that Green Nightshade could have been unripe berries.
Green= sepal lobes expand as the berries mature
Black= stays the same

A middle-aged man with a bald head sits in front of bookshelves filled with scientific and academic texts in what appears to be a home office or study. He's wearing a dark grey jumper and has a slight smile whilst looking directly at the camera.

Can species reintroductions harm biodiversity rather than help it? Are we using reintroductions as a distraction from the real drivers of our nature crisis? Listen to my conversation with the one and only @alexanderlees.bsky.social 🌍🦤🧪🪶

➡️ pod.fo/e/32fae6

An Intergeneric Hybrid Between Historically Isolated Temperate and Tropical Jays Following Recent Range Expansion | doi.org/10.1002/ece3... | Ecology and Evolution | #ornithology 🪶

How to find Mogulones crucifer:
The weevil is native to Europe/West Asia, but has been introduced to North America to control its host (Cynoglossum officinale; Hound's Tongue) which is invasive there.

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

Crazy discovery in ants 🤯🐜

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants | Nature
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Males from the same mother exhibit distinct genomes and morphologies, as they belong to species that diverged over 5 million years ago."

If you want to identify, well, anything, I recommend this post from @weevil-see.bsky.social. His choice of weevils to illustrate it is of course excellent, but it applies to everything from mushrooms to marsupials. This is how you can be a good identifier of things.

[Link contains spider]

YouTube video by owen reiser LISTERS: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching

Top film. The smartest look at this subject I've ever seen. Also funny and sweary.

youtu.be/zl-wAqplQAo?...

Thought I'd post something about separating Nysius senecionis and graminicola, as both are now widespread. The features to focus on are the extent of the matt field of the evaporatory area (the brown bit) and the length of the 1st hind tarsal segment relative to the 2nd and 3rd.

At #EOU2025 @eounion.bsky.social conference next week, we'll show new evidence implicating forestry in declines of British Marsh Tits during the era of woodland conversion in 1950/60s-1980s.
This was period of steepest decline in Marsh Tits. Why? What was going on back then? #ornithology 1/5

We just published a new issue of #BritishandIrishBotany, our Open Access online journal.
7 papers for you to enjoy inc Lady's-slipper orchid reintroductions; variation in Restharrows; a new Comfrey hybrid for UK; montane plants; sea-grapes new to Europe!
bsbipublicity.blogspot.com/2025/08/brit...

Map of UK and Ireland illustrating broad habitats in the UK and Northern Ireland as classified by the UKCEH Land Cover Map

Broad habitats from the UKCEH Land Cover Map for an area around Norwich in England

Broad habitats from the UKCEH Land Cover Map for an area more zoomed in around Norwich in England

NEW! The latest UKCEH Land Cover Map, describing the UK land surface in 2024, is now available 🏞️ 🌳

See what broad habitats—ranging from broadleaved woodland and arable land to freshwater and urban areas— there are and where in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

#LandCover #LCM

🧵🧪 1/

Also, white stork is doing very well on the continent (partly due to reintroductions), see fe breeding trend in the Netherlands ((c) @sovonvogels.bsky.social ). No doubt this population outbreak will spread to the UK. Better to use limited funding for conservation to species that really need it.

Most weevils have a snout, elbowed antennae & a heart-shaped foot—making them easy to recognise (with a few exceptions). 🪲

Learn more for free with @markgurn.bsky.social:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1491232379...

#Weevils 🧪
@amentsoc.bsky.social @britentsoc.bsky.social @royentsoc.bsky.social

YouTube video by Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts Host-specific broomrapes: the role of strigolactone cocktails

How do broomrapes find their hosts? How can they specialise on different hosts? Enter the astonishing world of strigolactones
. youtu.be/mUp9n_RW2eg?...

Absolutely incredible turnout for Budapest Pride! So proud of all the organizers, including some old friends, who estimate hundreds of thousands— major embarrassment to Orban

Front cover of the Field Mycology journal, with a photo of Chromocyphella muscicola by Peter R. Smith

The BMS's Field Mycology journal is now available to all on a new, open access online platform. Find out more, and visit the journal website to read the latest articles and access back issues here: www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/fm-journal.h...

It looks like Lasiorhynchites to me.

Birds of the World - AviList: A Unified Global Checklist of the World’s Birds is Now Available AviList, a unified global checklist of birds, that provides the most current and authoritative taxonomy of birds around the world was released today by experts in taxonomy, nomenclature, and bioinform...

A monumental taxonomy unification effort has just been published - thanks to all those who've collaborated for years to make this happen!
birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/avi...

Yes, it is another Philopedon plagiatum.

Has the Nechisar Nightjar Mystery Been Solved? - American Birding Association The authors of a new study believe they have solved one of the world’s great rare bird mysteries: the case of the Nechisar Nightjar, Caprimulgus solala.

Has the Nechisar Nightjar Mystery Been Solved?

A fascinating summary on the identity of the mysterious single wing found in Ethiopia in 1990.

www.aba.org/has-the-nech...

#birds #birding #ornithology @aba.org

Careful design of Large Language Model pipelines enables expert-level retrieval of evidence-based information from syntheses and databases Wise use of evidence to support efficient conservation action is key to tackling biodiversity loss with limited time and resources. Evidence syntheses provide key recommendations for conservation deci...

We trained 10 large language models with 6 retrieval strategies then compared all of these with our experts with access to literature. Well-trained LLMs won! General LLMs without extra training are likely to perform poorly and misinform decision-makers
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Three common inferential errors when investigating context dependence in ecology. Consider a test of context dependence in its most basic form: a 2 × 2 factorial experiment, measuring an ecological response Y, to the crossing of factors X and Z, each with two levels. The analyst fits a statistical model with an interaction term to the data: Y ~ X + Z + X × Z, to test for and quantify context dependence. Three inferential errors are possible when the measurement scale or symmetry of the interaction are overlooked: detection and magnitude (Type D), sign (Type S) and misidentification of underlying processes (Type A).

Since we are still talking about interactions, I worked with some ecologists a couple of years ago on measurement scale, interactions and interpretation issues. I think some problems arise from failure to distinguish prediction from inference, a chronic problem in ecology imo doi.org/10.1111/brv....

1/6) New paper out in Molecular Ecology! We uncover the intriguing biogeographic history behind the Holarctic disjunct distributions in Vanessa butterflies. @phylomigrationlab.bsky.social
#biogeography #insectmigration #butterflymigration #butterflies #evolution
shorturl.at/UFrrU

Every year, fewer #WhiteStorks cross the Straits of Gibraltar on their annual migratory journey. In this paper, we unveil the mechanisms driving the recent and rapid loss of their migratory behaviour.
👉https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2656.70035

We have 3 fab #WildFlowerID webinars lined up for you this spring. Led by national experts. All absolutely free!
22 Apr: Mulleins with Mike Crewe
7 May: Mints with Ambroise Baker
10 June: Broomrapes with @christhorogood.bsky.social
Details & booking links:
bsbipublicity.blogspot.com/2025/03/shar...

Twelve warblers with rather long cocked tails and fiery red eyes, all facing left. The top row has Sardinian with a dark grey head, white throat, and brown underparts; Ruppell's which is mostly pastel grey with white edges to wing feathers; and Cyprus which is like a dingy version of Ruppell's with a few dark speckles on the underparts. The second row has the long-tailed species: Dartford with wine-red underparts and dark blue-grey upperparts; Balearic, which is mostly greyish, but slightly brown-tinged on the sides; and Marmora's, which is very like Balearic, but less brown and a slightly darker throat. The third row has three identical subalpine warblers, with grey heads, pale rose-pink underparts, and brownish backs. They look the same apart from the right hand one, Eastern Subalpine, which has very slightly longer wings. The bottom row has Spectacled Warbler, which is brown with a rusty wing panel and a white throat; Common Whitethroat, which like a large Spectacled Warbler with blacker centres to the wing-coverts; and Lesser Whitethroat, which has a grey head, darker ear-coverts, a cold brown back, and black legs.

Here are the females. I thought they might turn out rather drab, but I am fond of them, especially the neat grey Ruppell's and the rusty-winged Spectacled. #birdart #birds

Although I don't want to question the general value that beavers can have to nature conservation, in Flanders they often pose conservationists for a lot of challenges. Here is our local experience with beavers. (1/n)

Turnstones are well known omnivores (everything from dog 💩 to human flesh).
How can we work out whether a change in diet is borne of necessity?
Blog from 17 Feb 2016 9️⃣🎂
wadertales.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/w...
#ornithology

I thought that but I was won round by finding that Curruca is the Spanish vernacular and it seems more apt. Sylvia is a graceful wood sprite. Curruca is an angry ball of feathers scolding you as it bounces round a bush. It’s almost onomatopoeia if you say it with the second u short.