Richard Broughton 🇺🇦 It has been a joy moving back from the UK to my corner of NE France... baseline shifting back! RB Shrike just making its nest in the garden as I write. Two words: diversity and wilderness. Villages are much less manicured, especially around farms. Municipal pesticide use banned.

5/ The Woodcock is hunted widely across Europe, including in the UK, with the impacts of this on our resident breeding Woodcock populations unclear. Having robust information on the breeding population provides vital evidence on the changing fortunes of this Red-listed Bird of

And just like that... We have our first eggs. Baby spotted flycatchers loading 🔋 #projectSPOFL

New in #BirdStudy
An important paper showing the results of the latest national survey of Woodcocks. A mixed picture, but overall still declining.

A stalking stork among the grass stalks walks.

What flows down a river?

Water obviously,
but also wood and sediment (gravel).

If any of these 3 things are missing then a river can become unhealthy very quickly.

A 🧵about healthy river habitat. A really important aspect of restoring river wildlife.

Eight Ukrainian students from Vinnytsia region are building kamikaze drones and bombers on their own. They started making drones for their computer science teacher, who is defending Ukraine.

The cost of one drone ranges from 11 to 16 thousand hryvnias ($270-$400). The students

#Rhododendron ponticum is an introduced non-native species that outcompetes native plants in woodlands.

It also carries a damaging #TreeDisease , Phytophthora ramorum: woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-an…

With its buttresses at the base this tree reminds me of tropical forests, but it’s an Oak in old-growth European forest. This is what Oaks can become in ancient unmanaged woodland.

Meanwhile, pooch runs amok chasing waders up and down the beach - part of a SSSI/SPA/Ramsar site/National Nature Reserve

Make no mistake. This is devastating news.

Critical slowing down in response to shock - in this case drought - is a sure sign that a tipping point is close.

We could lose the whole forest with cataclysmic consequences.

theguardian.com/environment/ar…

Endangered migrating eagles impacted by Ukraine war, new study shows - Phys.org - goo.gl/alerts/PPhAFb #GoogleAlerts

Incorrect assumptions like this are exactly why ecologists, conservationists & land managers need to avoid the loaded term ‘scrub’ and use the more positive ‘shrubland’, akin to woodland, wetland, grassland. It’s like calling heathland by the old name ‘wastes’. Doesn’t help.

Happy #WorldBeeDay ! Enjoying a few moments in our fabulous wildflower meadows surrounding the buildings at work UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Wallingford. In just 3-4 years, packed with yellow rattle, buttercup, red clover, oxeye daisy and more. Mown paths providing bare soil for nesting solitary bees

More forest immersion. Last day for a while in the old-growth forest at #Białowieża . Chaffinches and Red-breasted Flycatchers now dominating the soundscape as other species are finishing breeding.

Had lunch with the garden Redstart. Sandwich for me, a fly for him.

A croaking Pool/Marsh* Frog for your viewing pleasure.

*I think it's a Pool Frog, but happy to be corrected as I'm not very familiar with them.

The sound of bioabundance. The small river and marsh passing through Białowieża village in Poland, alive with amphibians and birds at dusk. I grew up next to marshes and ponds in the East Yorkshire fens, and they never sounded so alive as this.