Twitchers Revisited

Camouflage is an impressive thing

Willow Ptarmigan

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I guess this should really be in the obituaries thread, but nobody will have heard of him. Here there’s a small possibility that someone might

Tim died early last Saturday morning. I am proud to be able to call him a friend. Spent many great times on St Agnes, Isles of Scilly with him. He was one of the real top drawer birders. He will be sadly missed.

RIP Tim

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Sounds like a top bloke and immensely knowledgeable, amazing bird-spots. Thanks.

He wasn’t limited to birds either. He was extremely intelligent and always had a story to tell. His wife Ann is a very successful author, writing many books based in Shetland.

Ah, that Ann Cleeves

Yes, a lovely woman. I can’t begin to understand what she’s going through right now.

Anne Cleeves was the featured novelist interviewed by James Naughtie on R4 this morning (presumably recorded before last Saturday)

Yes, I heard it on my way to Lerwick :+1:

My favourite Kestrel in Richmond Park this evening

Kestrel perched 2.jpg by Ben Bolton, on Flickr

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Yet another iconic species under threat from climate change

Estimated numbers of Snowy Owls was c. 200,000 individuals. Recent work has revised this figure to c. 14,000 pairs. It is now regarded as vulnerable

Sad times :disappointed:

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Everyone has seen pictures of Peacocks displaying. Less seen is their spectacular flight pattern

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Peckham in Gabon - 03 Jan 2018
By the early morning of January 1, Peckham had arrived in Gabon, 570km (355 miles) south-west from his last location in the Central African Republic. His new location in the Haut-Ogooue region is just 55km (35 miles) away from PJ who has moved north from Angola, where he has spent some of this winter. Peckham has spent the last two winters in and and around this area in Gabon so we don’t expect much further movement from him, now that he is in his wintering grounds.

Staggering journey

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I do wonder why it (they) come so far North & why they don’t just hang about in Gabon given that they can evidently tolerate it & the weather there doesn’t vary that much regardless.

I’m not sure with the Cuckoo. As it’s a parasite, it may be that there are no suitable host species in Gabon & nearby.

Gabon has virtually no rain between June and Sept. so maybe that has an influence too.

The most remarkable part of it all, to me anyway, is how the newly fledged birds find their way to exactly the same part of Africa with no adults to follow. I know a university in Copenhagen took some adult Danish birds and released them 1,000 miles off their usual migration route in Spain and they still found their way to their usual wintering grounds in Africa.

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Bit like eels finding their way back to the Sargasso Sea, this is an interesting article but it still seems like we’re a way off understanding the secret of how they find their way back

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8273000/8273877.stm

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Further proof, if it were needed, that the natural world can still produce surprises.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2018/01/11/fifty-shades-of-black-these-bird-feathers-are-the-darkest-never-seen/#65bc7019392b

Super black feathers reflect so little light that they become nearly invisible

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Just a shame human beings were introduced into the natural world to fuck it all up.:weary:

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Quite

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If we push it too far it’ll get its own back.

VB

I don’t think we’ll have that long to wait tbh.

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