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Jamie Dunning

@j-dunning.net
2.9K followers 769 following 1.1K posts

I am an ornithologist interested in the social behaviour of birds. BTO RIN Chair. 📚 Research - www.j-dunning.net

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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 10/09/2026
Our first 50+ bird ringing day at Aust of the year, a shift from sub-Saharan migrants to autumnal chiffchaff and blackcap. Despite the south winds, good hirundine passage (+++) more meadow than tree pipit, 3 hobby and osprey (1/3 today) over. Most effort spent on a patch-tick wasp spider.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 31/08/2026
My first sea(estuary)watch of the autumn was quiet, bar a common scorer, with wind cutting off passage up the channel. Waders at new passage were more interesting- 2 Sanderling, 3+ Curlew sand and Spotted Redshank the best of it. Otherwise hobby and a small push of wheatear through.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 10/08/2026
Despite slow migration over, Aust finally delivered migrants on the ground this morning, including Willow and Garden Warbler, Common and Lesser Whitethroat, Redstart and Tree Pipit (+15 over).
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 23/07/2026
🌾🌾
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 23/07/2026
Given puffins fledge at night to avoid predators, and given the extreme tides, we released this one down the channel at high tide in the hope it will be encouraged back towards Lundy.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 21/07/2026
Last few days to submit abstracts for BOU:Avian Disease Ecology Conference in April, should be really interesting few days -- bou.org.uk/event/avian-... 🧪🪶
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 04/07/2026
A few blowy days on steep holm for gull monitoring and planning habitat work for the Autumn. Good year for LB and HG (~150 ringed), GB recovering. Cormorant also having a good year. Storm petrel, fulmar and mistle thrush island ticks for me (and firsts for a long time)
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 16/06/2026
The skyline has changed and my favourite pub is an Italian restaurant now but there are still black redstart singing in Manchester City centre - two in same places they bred 15 years ago.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 05/06/2026
Barn owl seem to be having an excellent year - this evening we ringed 23 chicks in four boxes, including two broods of 7 and all at good weight.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 26/05/2026
Look at the facial (rictal) bristles on this Icterine warbler (which had hit a window in Lecce, Italy). These are generally associated with low-light foraging, including in nocturnal migrants like this one. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 21/05/2026
Sea-watch over the Adriatic Sea from Puglia, Italy this morning, in a decent onshore wind, delivered three Eleonora's Falcon moving NW up the coast and briefly harrying a house martin over the water - a dream for me. No photos, but here's some of the constant line of Scopoli's.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 05/05/2026
Been meaning to post these for a while. Steep Holm is a great study in niche partitioning - Lesser Black-backs on the plateau and Herring Gulls on the slope. But, on a clear day you can just see Lundy, where costal Cormorant are entirely replaced by oceanic Shag.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 05/05/2026
Steep Holm has Avon's only(?) breeding Cormorants, a scarce southern sea-cliff breeding population of the coastal subspecies, carbo. They are difficult to see from land, but most with small chicks now.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 05/05/2026
Glad to have timed a chance mid-morning visit to Severn Beach with a clear-weather push of Arctic Skua moving up the river. w/ @andy-1963.bsky.social, Adam and Emily.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 05/05/2026
Last weekend’s ringing trip to Steep Holm started off well, but migrants cleared as the cloud lifted. Great to see work to clear the plateau of invasive growth progressing too. Marsh harrier, and lesser Whitethroat were new for the year there (the harrier for the decade).
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 27/04/2026
Late to posting about the extraordinary vismig on the Severn this weekend, including good numbers of Common Tern and Little Gull, stacking high before tracking inland, but also Whimbrel, Black and Little Tern (a patch tick for me). @severnsidebirds.bsky.social
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 23/04/2026
Almost four years after its conception at the hole nesting birds conference in Oxford, @jorgensoraker.bsky.social and I have had our paper, The costs of extra-pair behaviours in birds, accepted in Biological Reviews. More soon. 🪶🧪
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 12/04/2026
Before I’ve had one vismig this year, there are tree pipit back on territory and singing in mid wales 🏔️
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 06/04/2026
There are still seabirds moving against a cold easterly wind. Fewer Manx, kitt and fulmar. Highlights are two puffin and six common scoter and a great northern diver south. @cbwps.org.uk
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 04/04/2026
Only my second record of pom skua in St Austell bay. The first, below, was December 2014.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 04/04/2026
Another hour from 17:00. Pom skua (!!), 990 auks (poss razorbill majority), another 2500 Manx, 48 gannet, 21 fulmar, 3 GND (inc a br. plumage), 90 kitt and 6 sandwich tern. @cbwps.org.uk
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 03/04/2026
Purple sandpiper on the rocks beyond Mevagissey outer harbour - these are semi regular here in spring.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 31/03/2026
Nice to see LMCG reported, now at least 5 years old. Despite the population collapse in Derbyshire, this bird has been recorded on passage every year since, although now alone. We have no idea if/where he breeds, but not with the West Yorks group, so a +1 on our English pop. estimate.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 16/03/2026
First slow worm (?) of the spring, last week in mid Wales.
A buzzard carrying a slow warm
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 15/03/2026
Four redpoll - and an almost in focus flight shot - were a welcome garden first yesterday. They're quite scarce in the city here.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 11/03/2026
Only John Endler had one of the Bole’s papers, is this any use? I suspect this this accessible online.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 06/03/2026
It's finally feeling like Spring at Aust after a good push of Wood pigeon and finches this week - mostly Chaffinch Linnet and Siskin with fewer Crossbill and Redpoll.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 02/03/2026
Six, wild, twite returned to a breeding site in the Pennines on Friday (📸: M Rowell)
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 09/02/2026
This is the day it was caught and ringed - A danish ringed Goldcrest caught at the same time (!)
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 09/02/2026
A female Blackcap, wintering at Aust, was first caught and ringed while wintering(?) at @flamboroughbird.bsky.social in 2023. 🪶
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 02/02/2026
Eleanor Grover took this cool photo of some of our colour-ringed Starlings on @lundybirds.bsky.social. These birds are all colour-ringed as breeding adults (April-June), sharing space with the long-running sparrow project. lundybirdobs.org.uk/news-and-sig... lundybirdobs.org.uk/what-we-do/b...
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 30/01/2026
I wrote up this idea a few years ago for CIEEM’s InPractice magazine. The business has gone from strength to strength since. If you’re interested, and I know a lot of you here have done surveys for us in the past, we’d love to hear from you.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 18/01/2026
The single Brambling was still with the linnets and chaffinches wintering at Aust midweek, but was mostly associating with Reed Buntings.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 14/01/2026
A peregrine on the Wills tower dropped two snipe axillary coverts while we were having a coffee at Bristol Museum this morning.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 10/01/2026
This chiffchaff has been on Gratitude road since Christmas. Pale throat and breast, brownish above with yellow on the super-c, feels Scandi/Northern. Appreciate looks and light can be deceiving. #BristolBirding
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 04/01/2026
I've started 2026 with a great day's patch birding in excellent company. Russian white-fronts at dawn, an excellent wader roost, Pintail, Pendulines, a flyover GW Egret (not easy here) and 1,300 finches in a field of Chicory. w/ @matthall95.bsky.social & @kidphotographer24.bsky.social
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 29/12/2025
Excellent winter birding at Aust this morning, mostly focussed on the 600+ linnet using the set-aside pasture (we managed to ring 30). Possibly two firecrest also wintering here. Only eight greylag geese over in the cold NE.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 16/12/2025
Happy Christmas from Severnside Ringing (birding/vismig) Group 🪶
A group of people celebrating at the pub
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 23/11/2025
Otherwise, 7+ distant divers in the bay, including black-throated, and a Looe island GB.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 19/11/2025
Thermal-imaging of two shearwaters in flight over St John's Valley on Lundy last Spring. As well as the bare parts, look at the radiation from the feathered wings!
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 15/11/2025
Another yellow-browed warbler and a patch-tick woodcock from a foggy Aust this morning. Only goldcrest in the nets and a slow push of finches and redwing overhead.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 11/11/2025
Obviously travelling by train. Highlights were flocks of stork -migrating or staying?- and great white egret through the Black Forest 🚂
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 10/11/2025
Thanks to the CASCB @uni-konstanz.de and @alexhhchan.bsky.social for hosting me today. It was a pleasure to see their exciting work on perception and decision making in person, and to talk about applied models of animal social behaviour.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 02/10/2025
Late to posting an early yellow-browed warbler, briefly through scrub at Aust on Monday morning. Otherwise, Siskin moving and single grey plover over. Despite the autumnal feel, still no redwing.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 17/09/2025
This is the photo that best captures how good Monday was on the Severn. The first sooty shearwater for Bristol, and the first for Avon since 1974 (📸: @aravindramesh19.bsky.social)
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 17/09/2025
Monday’s Sabines gull was still on the foreshore, below the sea-watchers bench, at Severn Beach yesterday. Still Manx, terns and phalarope in the channel.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 15/09/2025
The patch living up to our group’s logo today too.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 15/09/2025
Big weather delivered an exceptional push of seabirds up the Severn today, including the first sooty shearwater for 45 years, grey phalaropes, sabines gull and Leach’s petrel.
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 12/09/2025
Here’s @matthall95.bsky.social sea-watching in similar conditions yesterday !
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Jamie Dunning @j-dunning.net · 12/09/2025
Rounded off an excellent week with a Sabine’s gull from Severn Beach, pushed up the channel on squally weather. Also, 8+ Manx, comic and black tern, and spoonbill all on the river.
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