Plot showing the cumulative percentage of trees in first budburst and first leaf across the Phenoweb Transect since 1 April 2026. Orange line shows southern sites, while the blue line shows northern sites. The black line represents the transect-wide trend.

Oak budburst.

Sycamore budburst.

Beech budburst.

Spring is gaining momentum across Scotland. 🌱

Cumulative budburst across the transect has now passed 40%, driven by a surge of activity at our northern sites in recent days. While the North is waking up, the South continues to lead the way in terms of first leaf emergence.

#Phenology #Spring2026

A snowy mountain scene taken in the northern Cairngorms on 5 April 2026.

Woodcrete nest box hanging from a snow-covered tree.

Woodcrete nest box hanging from a tree, with a snowy landscape in the background.

The first week of the 2026 field season is underway, and Storm Dave has provided a chilly – but atmospheric – start. ❄️🏔

63 blue tit nests initiated, so far, with 4 lined. Looking like a later start for us compared to elsewhere in the UK/Western Europe.

#phenology

1/🧵My first preprint!🐛🌡️

We examine how environmental effects experienced during one life-history stage persist and modulate environmental responses in later life-history stages.

With Lea Beaupere, @sheldonbirds.bsky.social, @rona-learmonth.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Most detected bird species thus far: Eurasian wren and – perhaps unsurprisingly – blue tit!

Really excited to see what we can learn from these data long-term.

🚨🚨 Breaking news from Wytham Woods: The 80th year of data collection of the long-term tit study officially started today with this nest with 3 Blue Tit eggs (pic: @mcmahok.bsky.social). First egg inferred 23 March which is our earliest EVER nest - beating the previous record of 26 March by 3 days!🚨🚨

Many congratulations to Shane Butt on the publication of his first paper as part of his PhD on
@rumdeerresearch.bsky.social .

Three decades of satellite remote sensing (Landsat & MODIS) + long-term field data = better insights into red deer ecology.

🌿🦌

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

🦫 Case study three features Nature and Nurture, a riparian woodland in Wiltshire, which has used the Countryside Stewardship grant to protect cricket bat willow from beaver damage whilst adapting to seasonal flooding.

Available here: www.gov.uk/government/c...

The second case study in our series is now live 🌿

Discover how @nationaltrust.org.uk has managed Holnicote Estate in West Somerset to control local deer and grey squirrel populations, and protect over 600 hectares of diverse woodland. 🌳

We (Pat White, @jayofthetriffids.bsky.social & I) were commissioned by Forestry Commission to produce a series of case studies on #treeprotection challenges and solutions.

The first, on Burrator Forest in Devon, is out now and covers #livestock #grazing, #virtualfencing & benefits of #beavers 🐮🌳

👇

#ornithology
nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Population density drives increased parasitism via greater exposure and reduced resource availability in wild red deer | Parasitology | Cambridge Core Population density drives increased parasitism via greater exposure and reduced resource availability in wild red deer

📣 Hot off the press! 🔥🧪

'Population density drives increased parasitism via greater exposure and reduced resource availability in wild red deer @rumdeerresearch.bsky.social'.

Proud to have played a small role on this one with an amazing team led by @hasikadam.bsky.social! 🦌🌱🪱

Read about it here 👇

Photo by John Agnew. Adult male Sparrowhawk perched on a garden fence. It is a small bird of prey with slate-grey back, wings, tail and head with rufous cheeks and breast. It has orange eyes and a hooked bill. The bird has its back to the camera but has turned its head to look at the camera.

New research on Edinburgh's urban Sparrowhawks has been published in Bird Study. Lead by Mike Thornton, SOC representative on Scottish Raptor Monitoring Group, the study looks at changes to Sparrowhawk diet and links to clutch size.
doi.org/10.1080/00063657.2025.2513542
#RaptorResearch #ornithology

This morning's bird ringing highlight: a male Grasshopper Warbler! After over four weeks of hearing one reeling at this site, it was great to finally catch it in the net. (A first for me).

@btobirds.bsky.social #ukbirding

🙋‍♂️

📌

Absolutely worth the 03:00 am start.

Last week, I helped to ring and process 46 Sand Martins 🪶 — under licence from the BTO — including 6 retraps that had safely returned to East Lothian from their overwintering grounds in W. Africa.

All wrapped up with a beautiful sunrise over the Forth. 🌅

A single blue tit egg in a nest inside a woodcrete nest box.

The change in date of the first blue tit egg in the Phenoweb project population. Black points represent the mean (+/- SE) first egg date in each year, across all sites on our transect (with day 1 equal to the 1 April). The light grey points represent the first egg date at each individual site. The regression line represents the estimated mean (+/- 95% CI) and is fitted through data from 2014-2024. The red point represents the date of our first egg found in the current 2025 season.

And we're off! Our first blue tit egg was laid on 3 April 2025 - making this, by some margin, the earliest start to a season in the 12 years of our project! 🪺

#phenology #ukbirding #ornithology 🪶

Looks like being a very early spring for us. We already have over 60 blue tit nests and didn’t reach similar numbers ‘til around April 10th last year. This sycamore is already in leaf, and last year it didn’t reach a similar stage for another three weeks. When will we get our first eggs?

The 12th phenoweb.org field season is underway!

What a beautiful couple of days spent rambling around the Scottish Highlands checking nest boxes 🪹!

Huge wildfire breaks out on scenic Kilpatrick Hills overlooking Glasgow The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed they are working to extinguish the "fairly significant grass fire."

Wildfires burning in Scotland just now, too: www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottis...

Cillian Murphy The Blindboy Podcast · Episode

If you're into podcasts, this is a fabulous chat between Blindboy and Cillian Murphy, where they discuss the novel and the film (and some of Claire Keegan's other short stories - which are also all brilliant)

open.spotify.com/episode/4zyb...

'I who have never known men' and 'Small things like these' are both devastating, haunting, beautiful. They stick with you long after reading.

Cillian Murphy plays the role of Bill Furlong beautifully in the recent film adaptation of STLT, also. Well worth a watch.

We are seeking to appoint a fulltime field assistant to work on the Wytham Tit Project for 4-8 weeks in spring 2025. Duties will include (i) collecting standardised data from nest-box breeding populations of tits, (ii) setting up equipment to monitor foraging behaviour of great tits (e.g. cameras, proximity loggers), (iii) fitting proximity tags and accelerometers to adult great tits (iv) inputting data collected in the field. The start date and duration of this position is flexible, depending on availability of the successful candidate. The post could last up to 8 weeks, starting in mid-April, or c. 4 weeks, starting in early May. All fieldwork will take place in Wytham Woods, near Oxford. The work is variable in intensity and will at times require long days in the field, and working some weekend days, but this will be balanced out by a quieter period at the start and end of the season. Successful candidates must have (or be qualified to obtain) a BTO permit to ring adult great tits, be able to demonstrate skill and enthusiasm for biological research as well as experience of fieldwork under arduous conditions, and both lone work and working as part of a team. Due to the short-term nature of these posts, successful applicants must already have the right to work in the UK. Salary & Accommodation: Field assistants will be paid at grade 5.2 (£17.02/hour) and responsible for finding their own accommodation. It will be possible to hire accommodated at the Wytham Chalet, a research station within Wytham Woods. Alternatively, field assistants can find private accommodation locally and use their own transport to commute to the woods (approx. 30 min by car or bike, depending on location). Please submit an application, consisting of (1) a covering letter explaining relevant experience and motivation, (2) a CV (max 2 pages), and the names of two people who can be contacted as referees, by Tuesday 11th March 2025 to eleanor.cole@biology.ox.ac.uk. Inquiries to same email.

We're hiring a fieldworker to help with some of our projects in Wytham Woods this spring. Wonderful place to work (and live), especially in the spring. Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

No correspondence from the AE.

I'm also curious to know how the boar was able to chase the dog down a path.

Surely, a responsible dog owner would have had their dog on a lead... which, incidentally, would have likely reduced the 'attack' in the first place.

Along with the classic, "I dread to think what would happen if a child...". 🙃

I obviously must have missed the reports of maimed children throughout Eurasia due to boar. /s

I can't get access to full text through my institution, but:
• does this compare natural cavities with nest boxes made from different materials? (Are there any that better mimic natural cavities?)
• are there differences in microclimate properties (for both) depending on height/aspect/tree species?

📌

Do apply and get paid to watch spring unfold across the Scottish highlands.

🌳-->🐛-->🐣

#ornithology #birds #ukbirding

Female siskin in the hand.

Final 2024/25 @btobirds.bsky.social winter ringing session in East Lothian. A good haul of 141 birds, and I *finally* got my hands on a siskin!

All birds handled and ringed under licence.