Paul French

Its a shame the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia (OSME) is not on bluesky, but that won't stop me saying what an achievement this is, two recent giant editions of their biannual publication, 'Sandgrouse' highlighting the status of Great and Little Bustards.

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...

The Stone Curlew still on Withfleet Outstrays this afternoon, at the east (Skeffling) end as usual. @birdguides.bsky.social

You should hear what my good mate Dave Chinese has to say.

Cracking morning at Withfleet Outstrays; the Stone Curlew still present and looking daft (before its little trip to Sammys Point), but nigh on 500 Little Gulls prob my highlight. Plus Wood Sand, 2 Spoonbills, 123 Avocets etc #Yorkshirebirding

Its a thankless task with few right answers and the best solutions are very complex. Some do stand out though, and you could argue most inland patches have more chance of fulmar/gannet than they do stone curlew. But i do appreciate the enormity of coming up with an all-encompassing scoring system.

To access the hides, you can drive down Humber lane in Welwick, or Humberside road in Weeton or Church road/Humber lane in Skeffling. Or walk from one end to the other and back. Main car park is accessed from Weeton. Fingers crossed the stone curlew flies ENE and calls loudly and often.... 😉

Crikey, is Stone Curlew undervalued, or is Razorbill overvalued? And why did I forget about Great Spotted Woodpecker for 6 months, they're a regular on my nuts! #PWC2025

#yorkshirebirding
Note this is not Welwick saltmarsh. What was called Welwick saltarsh is no longer accessible, the realignment is called Withfleet Outstrays and stretches from Skeffling-Welwick.

"I've got a Stone-Curlew" are not everyday words from Mrs French, but today was that day!! Local mega on the new Withfleet Outstrays realignment, at the Skeffling end.

I love the closing banter; "you buggers took your time" 😂
What a great bird, and superb documentation proving yet again it can be done.

Ohhhh, you're in one of "those" hotels are you. Fair play.

...to fledging, all fluffed and wide-eyed #UKBirding

We've been lucky to have a nest of sparrowhawks close to us, but they are incredibly secretive when nesting. I've seen them far less than usual, and I can actually see part of the nest from here! I assume they hunt more away from nest area and sneak in. Happily they have managed to get at least one

Print delays | British Birds At the end of June 2025, Swallowtail Print – the printers that prints British Birds – went into administration. This, of course, had immediate and direct implications for British Birds; namely, in the...

JULY ISSUE UPDATE: The July issue has now been printed and is on its way to subscribers. The delay in printing and delivery was caused by the printers that we used going into administration at the end of June. You can read more here:

www.britishbirds.co.uk/news/print-d...

I assume the soil used for the embankments is very low organic content/subsoil, and will take years of natural regrowth of ruderals to establish any fungal community. People think the plastic shrouds of death will solve all their tree planting woes.

Turtle Doves in the news, #BirdStudy has published some key #ornithology science:
First UK survey (2021), 2092 territories left:
doi.org/10.1080/0006... (open access).
Which farmland habitats are important? doi.org/10.1080/0006...
Nesting success hasn't declined:
doi.org/10.1080/0006...

Is it simply an increase in birders, or are they somehow getting dragged west by the increase in Ferruginous Ducks (also under recorded)? I would love another large scale survey of Mongolia's wetlands to be done covering the whole country. Live in 4x4 for a few months and count birds again.

But in the last five years, boom! Loads of records. When i did my first visit to Mongolia in 2017 it was basically a no chance bird. Now its almost expected, even on the standard central circuit, with 3+ in 2023, 13+ in 2024 and 8+ so far in 2025.

What is going on with Baer's Pochards? Here's the eBird map for Mongolian records from 1970-2020. There are zero records. In reality there are records, but clearly not many and probably mainly from the very-underwatched far east/Dornod area e.g. eaaflyway.net/baers-pochar...

Para bailar Vilcabamba!!

What a difference a few days make! No garden ticks since October, then two in two days! My predictions for next garden ticks doing rather well at the moment, while @clickbeetle85.bsky.social is torn between being happy at seeing Cranes and being annoyed that I'm in the lead 😂

First blood on the great garden list competition 2025! A team effort, G phoned me to say the Cattle Egret had left beacon ponds, it then flew past the garden with Little egrets. She may regret phoning me... 🤣🤣

As i say, i bet they all use Birdlife anyway, but maybe I'm wrong? Certainly agree about it being static, but that can be reassuring.

... certainly the UK government was using the Birdlife list when BOURC chose to go to IOC, as that was what the EU used, and we were a part of that at the time. I wonder if the government has now changed this since brexit? It was an interesting debate!), but so is beauty 😍

All this talk of lumps and new lists makes me realise how much i like the Lynx illustrated checklist. It may be static and weigh a ton, but it's gorgeous and so much more visual. A single World checklist is important (although less so than you think, as i suspect governments just use Birdlife, ..

John Crossland's Page Help John Crossland raise money to support Alzheimer's Research UK

John Crossland, the owner of the carpark at Thornwick Cafe opened it free of charge yesterday for the Song Sparrow twitch when there is normally a fee. For everyone who came, please consider donating to John's JustGiving page supporting Alzheimer's Research UK. www.justgiving.com/fundraising/...

Hurrah! yell the taxonomists. Now we can just rehash our old papers, double underscore the words "deep genetic divide" and resubmit. Voila!! We all go round again....

And lo, just as the World's avian taxonomy was beginning to settle down, and taxonomists everywhere were thinking of what to do with themselves, along comes Avilist and the lumping of lots of recently split species. avibase.bsc-eoc.org/compare.jsp?...

Despite some great shots of the Song Sparrow, its a skulking wee blighter! Yesterday evening, views were mainly restricted to seeing it creep on the ground in among the dense nettles and bindweed, only coming up in full view a couple of times. Nice when it did though #YorkshireBirding #RareBirdsUK