Kai Ira

Invert sampling of the River Lea. Beautiful day 😍

12.09.2025 10:09 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

SuDS matching game...given how many solutions there are, flooding should not be happening in the 21st century. 😮‍💨

10.09.2025 18:47 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Attending the "Understanding Your Local Wetlands" course by @thames21.bsky.social. It's sad how many of London’s rivers are hidden… but the real issue is that our rigid, static society isn’t compatible with natural systems, which are free-flowing and always changing.

10.09.2025 17:33 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Great lecture by @waxcapscooch.bsky.social on Waxcap Grassland. Definitely didn't know UK had such a high diversity of fungi 🤯. Wish I had more opportunities to learn about fungi though my course.

09.09.2025 19:37 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot, home to myriad bird species. Discover the spectacular radiation of these clever animals with Dr Sushma Reddy, as she explains how they have evolved on this unique island.

📅 07 Oct
🕑 6-7PM
📍 Online, free

buff.ly/Qgu0NvL

09.09.2025 15:15 — 👍 9    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Queen ant makes males of another species for daughters to mate with Bizarrely, Iberian harvester ant queens lay eggs that turn into male builder harvester ants, and some of her offspring are hybrids of the two species

Some of the eggs laid by Iberian harvester ant queens contain males of another species, the builder harvester ant – and these males father all of the workers in the colony.

09.09.2025 09:26 — 👍 9    🔁 5    💬 0    📌 0

Graph showing Primary forest loss (Mha) 2002-24. Rising from 3 to 5 million hectares per year. Agriculture and logging had been main drivers but effect of fires is increasing and jumped in 2024. Note below graph: Non-fire related loss can occur from mechanical clearing for agriculture and logging, as well as natural causes such as wind damage and river meandering. The three-year moving average may represent a more accurate picture of the data trends due to uncertainty in year-to-year comparisons. This figure is calculated with a 30 percent minimum tree cover canopy density.

Despite 140+ countries having committed to end deforestation by 2030, the world has not made progress yet, and if anything rates of forest loss are increasing. gfr.wri.org/latest-analy....

08.09.2025 18:58 — 👍 72    🔁 38    💬 4    📌 2

Songbirds play optical tricks to make their feather colors ‘pop’ Concealed black or white bands on feathers boost the vibrancy of bird plumage

Pick an idiom: "more than meets the eye", "beauty more than skin [feather] deep" etc.

In work led by Rosalyn Price-Waldman, we describe a hidden (and ignored!) black or white layer found below the visible surface of bird feathers which helps make bird colours so striking!

🧪 🪶 #colsci

13.08.2025 15:35 — 👍 99    🔁 30    💬 2    📌 1

Emailed a researcher about a prospective PhD.... they said they have funds, but only to cover fieldwork, not the salary. I'd need to seek extra funding for that. Is this common? How would that even work?? 🤔 So confused

08.09.2025 12:10 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Spent the morning looking at Brownfield ecology and trying to ID plants in the field using a dichotomous key....I have so much to learn 🤯🥲

06.09.2025 18:27 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

For the first time I attended an Invertebrate Study day at the @NHM_London hosted by Biological Recording Company. After four gruelling hours, I managed to ID a sample. 🥲😭 I present: Trigonotylus caelestialum

04.09.2025 16:53 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0