Martin Collinson

So many treats offshore today, including a Merlin chasing incoming passerine over the sea, juv Sabine's Gull, Little Gull, Whooper Swans and Barnacle Geese, and patch-rarest of all, 3 Shelducks going south.

Genetic Identification of Birds - The Aberdeen Wildlife DNA Lab Help Martin Collinson raise money to support University of Aberdeen Development Trust SCIO

Thank you to everyone who continues to contribute to our fundraiser. Recent greatest hits from samples sent in by ringers and birders for ID include an Atlas Flycatcher in Spain, and a Ménétries's Warbler in Poland!

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/...

Top birds for yesterday were Treecreeper and (honorary bird) Minke Whale - both less than annual in Newtonhill despite no lack of trees or sea.

Can of pineapple flavour beer called 'Ananas in Pyjamas' featuring 2 pineapples in pyjamas running (possibly chasing teddy bears).

Is it just me or is beer getting sillier?

Image that says: 10,000! https://www.yourparty-membership.uk/

10,000 have joined us as paid-up members!

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This picture of a crescent-shaped Earth and Moon -- the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft -- was recorded September 18, 1977, by NASA's Voyager 1 when it was 7.25 million miles (11.66 million kilometers) from Earth. The Moon is at the top of the picture and beyond the Earth as viewed by Voyager. In the picture are eastern Asia, the western Pacific Ocean and part of the Arctic. Voyager 1 was directly above Mt. Everest (on the night side of the planet at 25 degrees north latitude) when the picture was taken. The photo was made from three images taken through color filters, then processed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Image Processing Lab. Because the Earth is many times brighter than the Moon, the Moon was artificially brightened by a factor of three relative to the Earth by computer enhancement so that both bodies would show clearly in the print. Voyager 2 was launched Aug. 20, 1977, followed by Voyager 1 on Sept. 5, 1977, en route to encounters at Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980 and 1981. JPL manages the Voyager mission for NASA.

48 years ago, on the 18th of September 1977, space probe Voyager I took the first long distance photograph of earth and the moon together from 7.25 million miles (11.66 million kilometres) away. #otd #history #space 🗃️

A loose V of winged dots in the grey sky, that's a skein of Pink-footed Geese. No really it is.

My first Pinkies of the autumn flying south out at sea. Still quite a few Little Gulls in this corner of the North Sea too.

PhD fellowship in collection-based Natural History Research Natural History Museum Denmark Faculty of SCIENCE University of Copenhagen   Natural History Museum Denmark invites applicants for a PhD fellowship in coll

The @nhmdk.bsky.social is offering a #PhD position in collections-based taxonomic or similar research, ideally focused on 'dark taxa' occurring in Denmark. The call is a broad one. Get in touch with a relevant curator if you're interested! 🧪🐝🪰💐🪱
candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

I meant SE winds 😊

Persistent SW winds have churned up the sea off Newtonhill and I've been getting flocks of feeding Common and Arctic Terns with Little Gulls - 60 LG yesterday and 25 today. Not massive numbers but prob more than I've had on the patches in last 20+ years.

The sea looked very quiet this afternoon, and indeed there weren't many burbs around, but 2 Sabine's Gulls were among them. Top Gullage.

Photo of Leeds United forward Patrick Bamford with green hoops drawn on his jersey.

C'mon Celtic, it's time

#Bamford #patrickbamford #celtic #lufc #coybig #cfc

Screenshot of Birdguides page 28 August reporting Menetries's Warbler trapped and ringed in April 2025, confirmed by DNA analysis.

Ménétries's Warbler in Poland this spring. DNA work by @tessaroo.bsky.social

I got another one too yesterday!

Donate to Help Mercury Yeet the Teet! (or: a top surgery fundraiser), organized by Mercury Natis Hello world, it’s me, Mickey, and this is a top surgery/elect… Mercury Natis needs your support for Help Mercury Yeet the Teet! (or: a top surgery fundraiser)

Hey bsky friends, I need your help! I've made a GoFundMe for top surgery, which I ideally want to do early next year (funds allowing). Because I'm only able to work part-time due to disability and PhD, any little bit helps towards this goal. Please share far and wide!
gofund.me/639f4a03

No Gannt Chart survives first contact with the project.

Who are these people that play pianos left in public spaces? What do they want? Why don't they leave air guitars in public spaces. I could get behind that.

S'OK you can keep them. They should stay special

Such a treat when 2 skeins of Canada Geese, 135 birds total, flew along the coast going north. Not common at all here. Birders with normal local patches might not relate 😄

The haar made seawatching a challenge this evening but saw a Sooty Shearwater and a great Skua plucking a Kittiwake out of the air and drowning the poor sod.

Bit of juvenile/ swee-oo Common Chiffchaff action in the garden this morning.

Yours truly and our mounted Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) specimen

The bird collection store, busy with visiting researchers, mounts, and in the background our volunteers who capture data from the specimen labels. It's not always this packed, but we do have a fair number of volunteers and visitors.

Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) in trays in the cabinets. The collections spaces are pretty new, fresh, and functional, which is not always the case for museum collections...

A tray of African raptor eggs to illustrate the breadth of the bird collection, which holds som 70K skin specimens, 60K egg clutches, and 10K skeletons.

Join us as Assistant #Curator of Vertebrates @ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿NMS! Large collections of #birds & #mammals + very active specimen prep = cool place! The ad doesn't say, but I say there's a good chance of prolongation beyond 1y. Hurry up and apply/spread the word: careers.nms.ac.uk/job/748553!

🪶🧪 #museumjobs #job

A genetically tractable non-vertebrate system to study complete camera-type eye regeneration Nature Communications - Accorsi et al. show that the apple snail Pomacea canaliculata has eyes similar to humans and can fully regenerate them. They then developed genetic tools to establish these...

Evolution’s eye game is wild, but mollusks take it to another level

CRISPR in apple snails gives us a new model to dissect how nature rebuilds complex organs like the camera-type eyes we humans possess

It turns out Evolution doesn’t just innovate, it rewinds, remixes, & regenerates

rdcu.be/ezw0t

Amazed they consider Lesser Spot and Willow Tit self-sustaining given imminent UK extinction of both.

REVIVE - the coalition for grouse moor reform, has joined Bluesky!

Please give them a follow: @revivecoalition.bsky.social

~10 White-beaked Dolphins offshore at Newtonhill this evening. 60 Manxies in 2 hours but no Sooties.

Who will benefit from the Heathrow expansion? Ultra rich jetsetters There’s something bitterly ironic about a government claiming to take the climate crisis seriously while backing the expansion of Heathrow Airport — a project that will release an estimated 4.4 millio...

This is what environmental injustice looks like. But it’s also social injustice.
www.standard.co.uk/comment/heat...
#Heathrow #HeathrowExpansion
@zackpolanski.bsky.social once again hitting the nail on the head.

My first 3 Sooty Shearwaters of the year past Newtonhill this evening. Autumn is on.

An English phrase for describing two things (or people) that are completely different is “like chalk and cheese.” A similar phrase in Czech is jako nebe a dudy. It means “like heaven and bagpipes.”