A Swift brightening up a grey sky

Saw probably my earliest ever Swift today, powering NE into the wind in Lincs. Amazing. And Whitethroats everywhere! #spring #vismig #lincsbirding #ukbirding

Correct. Very nice!

Absolutely. Although we don't have to imagine it any more... bsky.app/profile/stim...

22° solar halo in a patch of cirrus cloud interrupting a lovely blue sky

A fantastic weekend at #salopobs with the first Cuckoo and Whitethroats, more Wheatears, and best of all, garden tick 💥152💥 in the form of 7 Blackwits dropping into nearby Condover Quarry early this morning 🥳 #happydays #ukbirding

Venus (left) and the 2% waxing crescent Moon setting over the lights of Lyth Hill in Shropshire. The whole disc of the Moon is visible thanks to the phenomenon of earthshine, where the glow of the day side of the Earth (west of us) illuminates the shaded Moon 🌙

The beautiful one day old Moon and Venus about to set over Lyth Hill, from the back garden just now #Moon #astrophotography

Waning crescent Moon above the glow of dawn and some wind turbines emerging from a sea of fog

Another stunning morning today with the waning crescent Moon rising out of the fog. Made all the better by a backdrop of my first Whitethroats of the year 🎶 #yorkshirebirding

Those ouzels must have been awesome! But alpestris is not on the British List, just variation

Thanks. Yes, taken about 0415 (hence the mention of getting up too early!) and the view is obviously south, so that can't be sunset. You can lead a horse to water... 🤦🏻‍♂️

The Milky Way arcing across the pre-dawn sky with the glow from Acton Burnell in front of its hill

An added bonus of getting up way too early was a glimpse of the summer #MilkyWay from the drive this morning. The year rolls on... #astrophotography

2cy male Pied Fly on a fence staring down its next snack. Note the combination of black and brown feathers in the crown

2cy male Pied Fly on a fence, showing moult contrast in the wing that allows it to be aged

Wheatear at the top of the garden oak tree

Willow Warbler on a fence before moving off down the hedgerows. Migration in action!

Spring stepped it up a gear at #salopobs this morning with this gorgeous 2cy male 💥Pied Fly💥 in the paddock by the garden (first non-nocmig record), 8 Wheatears and 3 Willow Warblers moving thru, and lots more of all three hirundines #ukbirding #migration

Adult drake Lesser Scaup in a flap

Grey Heron chicks in the nest

Adult Grey Heron on a nest

Our drake Lesser Scaup was still waving to passers-by at The Mere #Ellesmere this evening before flying to the far SE end, and the heronry is starting to get noisy 🐣 #shropshirebirding #ukbirding

Adult Arctic Skua silhouetted against the evening sun and a sparkling Irish Sea

There's not much better than skuas, and spring adults are a rare treat. A couple of Arctics cutting some shapes as they raced north along the Blackpool/Fleetwood coast this evening were just fantastic 😍 #lancsbirding #ukbirding

Briefly. Feels like autumn this afternoon!

Wheatear on a wall

13 Wheatears along the Fylde coast at Rossall this morning +White Wag and a few Redpolls north. Little Tern and a dozen Sandwich offshore #lancsbirding

Sleepy adult drake Lesser Scaup in the early morning sun with female Tufted Duck behind

The Mere Lesser Scaup: a 23-day gap between sightings, but just two early negative reports, and only four eBird checklists(!) in that time. Did it ever actually leave?! What's that? Underwatched?! 🤯 #shropshirebirding #ukbirding

ALT text is your friend. Lesser Scaup

Adult drake Lesser Scaup with female Tufted Duck

Look who's back at The Mere #Ellesmere this morning! Not the tern or wader I was looking for! #shropshirebirding #ukbirding

White Stork over Bridgnorth, left (Martyn Owen) and Trentham (Rob Gilbert)

Looks like the same one we had near Bridgnorth #shropshirebirding a few days ago, that was claimed as theirs by a nearby zoo unfortunately. Primary patterns match #staffsbirding

American Scaup, I like it! 😉 Not (necessarily!) in reference to this bird, but we must get them occasionally in the UK

Scaup, Chelmarsh, Nov 2025, Dave Western

Scaup, Bridgwalton, Dec 2025, Martin Ryder

Scaup, Bridgwalton, Dec 2025, Martin Ryder

Scaup, Bridgwalton, Dec 2025, Martin Ryder

Chelmarsh Nov to Feb I think with a visit or two to Bridgwalton Quarry (assuming all same bird). Pics by Dave Western (Nov) and Martin Ryder (Dec)

1w fem Scaup from Duivendijk Handbook

Female Scaup plate from Reeber's Wildfowl

Massive overlap in size between Scaup and Tuftie, Collins has 42-51 vs 40-47. Looks like a Scaup to me, surely the Chelmarsh bird from across the river #shropshirebirding

Colourful sunrise with a bright sun pillar over the Wrekin from the garden gate

Male Wheatear pausing on an overhead cable

Red sky in the morning, migrants warning. The first Wheatear of the year, Great Egret, a few more Swallows and that sunrise were the highlights of a couple of hours in the #salopobs garden this morning ebird.org/checklist/S3... #ukbirding

The view to the west from the back garden tonight: Orion far left, Pleiades above the oak tree, Venus setting lower right. The faint pale smudge extending diagonally up and left from Venus is the zodiacal light

It's a beautiful night out there. Orion low in the west, Venus setting, and a glimpse of #zodiacallight reaching up towards Pleiades 🤩 #astrophotography

Except for ringed birds, well photographed birds, birds of certain ages in certain time windows. It's about average for these claims of blackish birds with no feather detail! By no means as good as you're going to get

"ID confirmed" is a bold statement for a taxon whose ID can't be confirmed from a standing bird photo, or at this time of year! 🤔🤭

NASA just dropped this image of Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch looking back at us. The first woman to ever see our planet in its entirety. I’m not crying you’re crying 🥹🔭🧪 📸: NASA

2cy Thayer's Gull in a Lincolnshire field on 3rd April 2012. Second for Britain at the time I think

14yrs ago yesterday... #thayersgull #lincsbirding #timeflies

Hints of pink and maybe a bit of green above the glow of Shrewsbury. Nice isolated beam above the neighbours' house far right

Always nice to catch a bit of Easter #aurora - this was the view from the back garden here in Shropshire half an hour ago

Other people's pics of a 2cy Bonaparte's Gull

No, the Devon/Cheddar bird had a lot less black in the tail

Brindled Beauty on a bench

First trap of the year last night after a warm day. 28/9 wasn't a bad return, best of the bunch this fuzzball Brindled Beauty #teammoth