iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

To be honest, I was equally if not more impressed by the Griffon Vultures riding the thermals in the Picos de Europa earlier today.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

🪶 A smart Northern Wheatear alert amongst the daisies.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

🪶 “Hay Moon” over Skokholm Observatory at 11:00pm Wednesday. Manxies took an extra battering last night. Walked the island this morning, it’s been carnage. 😐

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Al fresco dining on holiday in Madeira, for both me and the female kestrel who had a wall lizard for breakfast whilst I had a cup of tea and a croissant. #birds

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Bonus!! Whimbrel right next to my van in a field at Ysynlas, next to the Dyfi whilst sitting waiting for the return of an Osprey & Hen Harrier. (Heavily cropped images).

Rear view of the brown/black buff coloured, cryptically camouflaged Curlew-like Whimbrel in a green rough pasture.

Camouflaged cryptically in browns/tans and black markings, rear view of Whimbrel showing the distinctive black crown markings that reliably distinguish from a Curlew when seen from this angle.

Silver van and thunder box in a green field next to the Dyfi Estuary

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Starlings are great vocal mimics, but can’t quite pull off the lookee-likee act. Nice try though.

Glossy iridescent Starling perched on a metal bar against a cloudless blue sky.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

#worcsbirds Midday Lickey Hills daily dog walk delivered a result today. Finally after 4 sightings since October, I captured a record shot of a cock Crossbill, one of a feeding flock of 8 birds. 🪶

A blush pink bird with a crossed bill feeding on pine cone seeds on the top of green conifer foliage. It’s a male Crossbill.

Pink plumaged bird with black edged wings and crossed bill mandibles, perched atop conifer foliage. It’s a male Crossbill.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

I followed a Pipit along a beach on southern tip of Llyn Peninsular today. It was always 1 sand groyne ahead of me (50 metres). Consequently, I only had a rear view. Initially I thought Rock Pipit, but looking at the supercilium on my sharpest photo, is it? Any ID opinion much appreciated.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Morning dog-walk sighting before the clouds rolled in. I frequently see Red Kites nowadays, usually soaring. This bird was off upwards as soon as I stopped and unbagged my camera.

Red Kite, grey head, yellow eye, yellow upper bill with fiercely hooked graphite grey lower bill and rufous body with brown dabbled wing markings, It has landed on a dead branch and is framed by a cloudless blue sky.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Elation and melancholy: They’ll be off soon and I wonder if any will come back next year. 🪶

Nine little black crescent silhouettes spread across a sky blue background. They are Swifts in a screaming party travelling from left to right.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Hard to credit, but I didn’t get a Wheatear in 2024. So, a drive out to the coast remedied that for 2025. So, sleek and alert and absolutely beautifully marked. And seemingly common as muck along the Anglesey coastal path.

Northern Wheatear perched on a barbed wire fence post. Grey, pink, cream tones brown-backed with a jet black bandit mask. Posing against a blue sky background.

Northern Wheatear in grass. Loads of subtle brown and cream tones.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Raven perched atop a conifer against an incongruously blue sky (incongruous for England anyway). #InternationalCrowAndRavenAppreciationDay! #birds #crow #Corvid #cawmunity

Glossy black feathered Raven perched on green conifer branch against bright blue sky.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Shockingly poor record photo of a Barn Owl at dusk near Droitwich. A brief glimpse of it through a hedge as it landed had me poking my bridge camera into the foliage and the autofocus was jumping like crazy. When I got to the field gate it had departed. #worcsbirds 🪶

Photograph taken through a tiny gap in hedge foliage at dusk of a Barn Owl perched on a wire fence post. Hazy pale bird, but no mistaking what it is.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Every time I look up in Amersham there’s a Red Kite casting its shadow. Photo opportunity even with an iphone.

Red Kite drifting over the old church tower against a cloudless blue sky in Old Amersham, Buckinghamshire.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Red Kites everywhere, but a diversion from birdwatching in the Chilterns. Early doors crayfish hunt, Good Friday on the Misbourne in Old Amersham with grandchild No:1 before the weather changed.

The Misbourne chalk stream in Old Amersham. Placid shallow stream flowing through the centre of town in lightly wooded gardens next to the churchyard.

The Misbourne chalk stream retained by an old wall as it passes the church presumably ancient flood protection. Small boy approaching with fishing net.

Small boy on stream bank with fishing net. Out on a crayfish rather than an Easter Egg hunt.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Eurasian Jays where I live are always totally spooked by even distant movement of people and dogs and I usually only see them in flight, fleeing. Thus morning I was lucky. #ukbirding #birds

Eurasian Jay, perched side view of blush pink crown, nape and back, azure upper wing feathers merging into contrasting black & white wing and tail feathers.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

8am got a better image of a Willow Warbler than yesterday’s dog walk result. Hoped for my 1st Lickey’s Whitethroat of the year. I got this and I don’t think it’s a Whitethroat. An ID confirmation, other than Merlin’s, would be very welcome. #ukbirding #birds

Willow Warbler obligingly sitting still in good light, in an exposed perch against a blue sky background. Miracles do occasionally happen.

Uniformly dark brown-backed warbler with contrasting creamy white chin, neck & eyestripe singing in a scrub birch thicket amongst newly emerging green leaves.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Almost in-focus Willow Warbler this morning. Fidgety buggers, why can’t they sit still on an exposed perch to sing like the Whitethroat does? (Probably because they don’t have a white throat to advertise I suppose)! #birds

Small olive brown warbler with cream coloured breast, partially hidden by twigs whilst singing against a blue sky background.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Strong springtime sunlight certainly amplifies the vibrancy and fitness of birds in prime breeding condition. #ukbirds #birds

Rear view of drake Widgeon on water with red ochre head and emerald green eye make up.

Cock Chaffinch perched amongst sunlit catkins. He’s in plump breeding condition puffing his blush pink chest out.

Photo from above a cock pheasant strolling on a footpath in bright sunlight. A vision of burnished bronze with contrasting helmet of white neck ring, black hood and crimson cheekpiece centred with yellow eye.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Red-breasted Goose with a group of Canada Geese on Dosthill Lake from the River Tame distant footbridge crossing. #birds

Group of 6 geese on a placid lake. 5 predominantly monochrome Canada Geese and one Red-breasted Goose facing them.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

A visit to New Fancy produced Crossbill, but perhaps a tad early for Goshawk so I dipped. A Dipper at Cannop Ponds (poor photo), Mandarins & Goosander there also AND a Marsh Tit (on feeding station). Hawfinch at Parkend, rounded off with a pint of Guinness, so a good day.

Dipper perched on rock midstream in river.

Gaudy multicoloured Mandarin Duck drake producing a very small bow wave across a smooth pond.

A very pink hued Hawfinch on the grass looking to feed.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

#context So, that would be “a generation” of fruit flies most probably.

BBC headline calling Storm Eowyn a “once in a generation” event. Photo shows a marquee type structure with roof cover damage.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

I was a good 50 metres away, so I’ve no idea why this particular Redshank was so cross with me.

A wading bird, a Redshank, at the water’s edge and staring straight at the camera and giving a severe look that is the absolute daggers.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Could Tennyson possibly have been watching Ravens in late November when he wrote, ``this is the time of year when ``a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.''

Raven atop a conifer in bright sunshine against a blue sky.

A pair of Ravens atop a conifer in bright sunshine against a blue sky.

A pair of Ravens exhibiting bonding behaviour in the conifer tops.

A pair of Ravens sitting side by side amongst a tangle of conifers branches.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

A European Robin belting out a tune. It may even be 🎶Happy Birthday To You🎶. 🪶

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 09/08/2024

The AOS checklist, (published July 2024), announced that as a result of genetic evidence, the Common Redpoll, Hoary Redpoll, and the Lesser Redpoll of Europe, are now combined into one single species in the US classification. The Redpoll (Acanthis flammea). Source is www.audubon.org . 🤔

audubon.org

National Audubon Society

The National Audubon Society protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow, throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education, and on-the-ground conservation.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 08/08/2024

A bit of a grey day and unsurprisingly not a lot of activity (people & birds) along the Lickey Ridge today. So here’s a late afternoon Carrion Crow surveying the grey tranquility.

I’m prone to photograph anything and almost everything in the environment, but corvids are fascinating (and beautiful) anyway this Common Crow was well worthy of my attention.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 07/08/2024

A bunch of ‘Twitterers’ with migration on their mind and ready to launch tomorrow into the Bluesky.

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Barney Cooper ☕️ 🦤🏳️🐦‍⬛ @barneycooper.bsky.social · 07/08/2024

Practice photo upload of one of the Lickey Ravens. I walk my Springer along the ridge every morning and they are almost ever-present. Blows my mind that as a kid, I used to have to travel to relatively remote places to see one.

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