James Lowther

Hi Nick, I saw what was almost certainly the same bird briefly on Saturday evening. Light was poor and I wasn’t sure it was a red-rumped. Assumed it was just passing through so wasn’t expecting to see it today. It could have been hanging around all day as I didn’t head out until the afternoon

Ah ok thanks

@jdown18.bsky.social too

@birdguides.bsky.social why’s there a correction on the red-rumped swallow report from Weymouth? Has been seen by multiple observers including @portlandbirdobs.bsky.social and there are photos

LOL

This shows differences in bill/head shape and colour of both head and particularly the back too

Proposed 3 way split of Euro/Tenerife/Gran Canaria Robin was on the IOC proposals list for many years but never resolved, there’s a chance it might be picked up by Avilist in the next few years I guess. They are certainly very different looking!

I would recommend getting more opinions, to my eye the tail length (long) and shape (narrow, square ended) looks better for sparrowhawk.

I think the first bird is a sparrowhawk, narrow hips, long square ended tail and (in particular) dainty beak

There are few Baikal Teal (Sibirionetta formosa 花脸鸭 Huāliǎn yā) wintering at the Yellow River estuary in Shandong Province. Photo by "菜小hua". #birds #china #yellowriver

I’m not sure about range, palmate are common at e.g. powerstock

It’s a juvenile I think, very hard to ID. Something about the pale stripe along the back and whether it starts in front of the shoulders….

Grok's new "feature" that allows users to undress women in photos posted to X is a new low for the platform. If you're somehow still active over there, I urge you to let this be your final straw.

Went to see this interesting gull found in Cork city yesterday by Alex Lynch. It seems most likely to be an adult Black-headed x Bonaparte's Gull, a very rare pairing and not conclusively proven anywhere as yet, as far as I can see, but with two strong candidates from Spain and France.

Siberian Thrush Christmas cake

Check out those undertail coverts!

I was going to use real holly leaves and berries from our garden, but then discovered all parts of the holly plant are poisonous. Lucky escape for the family!

Some wildlife-themed cakes from Christmas past: Gibson’s Albatross, Narwhales, Jack Snipe and Snowy Owl+Arctic Hare.

Is this the world’s first Siberian Thrush Christmas cake?!

My cake celebrates this bird, seen with @sheldonbirds.bsky.social
on our way back from Fair Isle in October. Made from clay & painted (badly) in acrylics.

Happy Christmas all!

#SiberianThrush
#ChristmasCake
#UKbirding #UKwildlife

Maybe it’s the angle but that bill looks quite hefty?

Alpine crow?

The name is similar in Icelandic I think it means Thor’s hen. Red-necked phalarope is Odin’s hen!

Juvenile green woodpecker in the trees at the edge of the north end of RSPB radipole reserve. It or another very noisy bird has been hanging around here for the last couple of weeks

With the UK’s combined sewage system (foul sewage and rainwater runoff in the same pipe) complete elimination of pollution is essentially impossible. Infrastructure improvements can reduce it but the system’s designed to bypass sewage treatment and discharge directly under heavy rainfall conditions

Thanks a lot that’s reassuring

I need my armour replacing too, do you know if they replace with the new more robust armour?

There are extra complications with hyphens and capitalisation though, e.g. in Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle

The landslip at Seaton in east Devon has huge number of marsh helleborines, I guess similar habitat. Also a few marsh fragrant orchids there

Did I? I didn’t realise if I did 😀

That’s two big “ifs”. No indication Avilist will follow US preferences (at the moment it’s taking IOC English names as default). And no indication that BOU will abandon local vernacular names. At present BOU uses IOC taxonomy but provides IOC English names as alternatives to vernacular names only.

Saw some there last year when the scarlet darters were there

BOU list has always included British English names. This also includes a different type of case where the local name makes no sense globally e.g. wren, blackbird, robin, eider etc see here bou.org.uk/wp-content/u... no reason to think that will change

Avilist hasn’t addressed English names properly yet so I wouldn’t worry too much about what they are currently

Next time!