David Bradnum

The Abberton WTE from this morning unsuccessfully hunting a Herring gull, it caught it twice but it still got away #essexbirding

Would be interesting to see any more pics - has quite a bit of Caspian vibe. Appears to have long parallel sided bill, with rather pale yellow colour; clean white head with sloping forehead down to bill; and small dark 'bullet hole' eye as you say.

Cracking start to 2026 birding with 101 species around Colchester area, mostly Abberton and Fingringhoe. Hen Harrier, Peregrine, Gtr and Lesser Scaup, Black- and Red-necked Grebe, Tundra Bean and White-fronted Geese, 5 Smew inc 3 stunning males, close Little Stints, 3 Bewicks and plenty more!

More generally though, I've been meaning to say for ages that I enjoy reading your blog - really honest, engaging and well written!
Hope to bump into you in the field at some point, if we've not already, and good birding for the rest of 2025 and beyond.

I'll join the club of people who saw 300+ in one year, had lots of fun... but am not likely to repeat the exercise. I remember endlessly dipping Wrynecks, well past the point of caring (even though they're amazing!) and wondering what the heck I was doing now and again. So I can definitely relate!

Congrats Phil - quality find, and just reward for much effort on the patch!

Regular English/Norwegian Black Scoter. 📸 Kjell Isaksen

www.artsobservasjoner.no/Image/3005980

This is news to me. The regular Northumberland wintering Black Scoter spends the summer off Varanger, Norway.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Descriptions and/or photos are required for a number of Essex rarities from 2024. The full list can be found at ebws.org.uk/2024descript...

If you saw any of these, please submit a description - there's a video on the link that explains more.

Thank you

#essexbirding

Hi Jared, Mark - here's a link to the app: dbradnum-ebirdcountyrecordcleaner.share.connect.posit.cloud
It's also built in R, a Shiny app, and can share a link to the underlying code if helpful. See the instructions tab for details, and feel free to drop me a DM if any questions or issues.

Always one step ahead of me 😉

I'm not aware of one, Jake (bit far south for me!) - but @darylrhymes.bsky.social is there fairly often and might know?

Sunday 7th anyone visiting wigborough Church Arctic warbler please note we are keeping the church side of carpark clear for churchgoers from 10.30am.extra parking been arranged opposite first entrance(gate is open please park in there only)noParking on vergeFrontGates )
#Essexbirdnews #EssexBirding

A superb bird and a brilliant way to end the week. Echo the congrats to Chris and Sean, excellent find.

Nice photos! I think you've got a Little Stint rather than a Sanderling in the first couple of photos here.

Yes, I'd noticed this too - the bears were definitely a surprise!
Interested in views or opinions about whether I should amend the feed to remove location names, so it only picks up the hashtags? Or perhaps just remove those larger town names, and keep less ambiguous sites like Abberton?

Just to add to this, after doing a little bit of testing - everything appears to be working as expected with 2024 eBird data from Bristol, Somerset and Gloucs, using the observer list from eBird Central in March 2025. Happy to chat via DM or email if you're still running into a problem though.

Hi Rob - thanks for reaching out. I've not done any testing with the app for a little while, so maybe something has changed slightly in ebird data extract format that's led to a bug with eBird users. Suggest we connect over email so I can understand the issue better and test it; will DM!

That's not really how Bluesky works though? The point of the feed is to only pick up posts about that theme - and then if folk want to read everything you post on all themes, they follow you. That's the best of both worlds! People that keep posting off-topic stuff to a feed end up blocked from it.

Apparently version 3.3.1 of the app (just released) should fix this problem.

Glad it worked. And hopefully the need for the workaround will only be brief - I guess there is a bug here somewhere and, fingers crossed, it will be fixed fairly quickly.

Are any of your species counts 'X'? I've seen a workaround suggested to replace these with estimated numbers and then try to resubmit.

Ah, that's good to hear (in both senses of the word) - they seem to have been a little more difficult to find there this year, for some reason. Hopefully all of these will be paired up.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper by Dick Newell Visit our new-look Galleries to view and search images of thousands of bird species, and join our worldwide community of bird photographers

Very cool find, Steve! Display has definitely been seen in the UK before - I remember a glorious evening in Cambs with this bird for instance: www.birdguides.com/gallery/bird...

Another birding paper! 🐦Where do the Nearctic landbirds that show up in Europe each autumn come from? We usually assume they come from NE populations, pushed off course by bad weather - but is that the whole story? #ornithology 1/3

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Based on plumage variation, we are confident there were 9+ red-footed falcons at Carlton Marshes over the last three days. 2 adult male 3 females seen hunting dragons together, with at least 4 sub-adult males.

Interesting to see the origin of this bird - a little disappointing but unsurprising that it's of captive origin... #suffolkbirding

Congratulations! Fantastic place, and fantastic news.

Excellent! Glad it worked well, and thanks for letting me know.

Thanks for picking this up Alan. I know Jenna's been able to help other county data managers with the same request v recently.