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Nicola Crockford

@numenini.bsky.social
599 followers 99 following 5.7K posts

Privileged to work for the world's migratory birds via RSPB & BirdLife International. Love snorkelling; from English chalk streams to coral. Views here are mine alone & do not necessarily reflect the views of the RSPB. www.youtube.com/@NicolaCrockford

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Reposted by Nicola Crockford
Rachel Deering @racheldeering.bsky.social · 12h
Morning. 🖼️ Tunnicliffe, What To Look For In Autumn, 1960.
Autumnal forest floor scene of leaves, red squirrel, fungi, nuts, jay in flight in distance and thrush, falling leaves, illustration.
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Curlew Action @curlewaction.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Read the full summary of current Curlew populations across Europe, from the recent AEWA conference in Finland: www.curlewaction.org/the-state-of...
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Renewables Grid Initiative @renewablesgrid.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
📘 Our 2025 Annual Report is out! From bird protection in the field to COP30 and the European Grids Package: how RGI turned the energy transition's toughest questions into workable answers. Read the full report 👇 buff.ly/syO4xQD
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RSPB @rspb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Knot flocks touch down in today's Autumn Arrival Spotlight, arriving from the Arctic to join resident birds. Watch and wonder as thousands gather on tidal mudflats at RSPB Snettisham, creating mesmerising aerial displays as they move in unison.
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Nicola Crockford @numenini.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A #WorldRiversDay 🧵to give a portrait of a 1.5km reach of the River Little Ouse between Thetford & Brandon. This week, despite its #chalkstream loveliness, apart from tiddlers there were only a few fish, all giants, such as this great c90cm log of a Trout, no red on it. Another Sea Trout?? #MySwim
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Graham Appleton @wadertales.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
LPO is calling for permanent shooting ban for #Curlew and Black-tailed Godwit. This would provide protection for thousands of both species that winter in and migrate through France. Background: wadertales.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/b... Map shows tracks of Curlew returning from France to breed in UK.
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William (Bill) Sutherland @billsutherland.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Paper written by a team of funders describing how they can and are encouraging the embedding of tests into practice. doi.org/10.1111/cobi...
doi.org
Role of funders in embedding tests in conservation practice
Effective conservation practice requires decisions based on reliable and relevant evidence, but significant gaps in the evidence base exist. Incorporating well-designed tests of the effectiveness of ...
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Richard K Broughton @richardkbroughton.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This paper is based upon the years of citizen-science data collection by Wiltshire Tree Sparrow legend and @btobirds.bsky.social ringer, Matt Prior.
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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I remember seeing Margaret Attwood at the IOC in Vancouver in 2018 - the closest thing to Canadian royalty?! Excellent to see a chair in Ornithology being endowed - see quoted tweet for direct details & more background in this @theguardian.com article www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
theguardian.com
‘Birdwatching is close to rapture’: Margaret Atwood on why she has given C$1m to avian research
Award-winning novelist celebrates late partner’s love of birds with gift to establish the Graeme Gibson chair in avian biology
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NOAA Fisheries @fisheries.noaa.gov · 25/09/2026
Estuaries are often called the "nurseries of the sea," because most of the fish and shellfish we eat spend part of their lives there. They support tourism, millions of jobs, filter our water and protect coasts from storms. This #EstuariesWeek, learn why we love these habitats: bit.ly/4hKqyDu
An aerial view of an estuary, with marshes and water. A bridge runs through the habitat and houses on the left.
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William (Bill) Sutherland @billsutherland.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Delighted that the RSPB are now evidence champions marking their great work, especially in the testing of conservation actions to improve practice. www.conservationevidence.com/content/page... www.conservationevidence.com/content/page...
conservationevidence.com
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BTO | British Trust for Ornithology @btobirds.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
🔊 Registration is now open for The Non-Estuarine Waterbird Survey (NEWS)! Sign up ➡️ www.bto.org/webs-news NEWS monitors waterbirds along stretches of open coastline that aren't covered by estuary surveys, helping us build a more complete picture of wintering birds around the UK. #UKBirding
An Image of a Purple Sandpiper features in a circular frame. Wording to the left of the image reads: Volunteers needed. Take part in the Non-Estuarine Waterbird Survey (NEWS). The BTO and News Logo feature top right.
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Teresa Catry @teresacatry.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Associations of waterbirds with harvesting and ploughing events in rice fields: increasing foraging opportunities or just gathering for the feast? doi.org/10.1007/s004... #BirdRice @ednacorreia.bsky.social @jpgranadeiro.bsky.social @cienciasulisboa.bsky.social
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Gary Allport @birdsandlife.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Excellent paper by James Hogg in Afrotropical Bird Conservation putting Bela Vista wetlands on the map. With 3,500 Curlew Sandpipers shows International Importance of freshwater wetlands in Mozambique journals.uct.ac.za/index.php/AB...
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Graham Appleton @wadertales.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Tracking Whimbrels across the globe. Amazing insights that can help to target conservation action. BLOG wadertales.wordpress.com/2026/09/22/w... PAPER onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #Conservation
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William (Bill) Sutherland @billsutherland.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
What can be the consequences of well managed free living horses on ecosystems? youtu.be/lv4x3uBq5Rg?...
youtu.be
How Wild Horses Shape Ecosystems
YouTube video by Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts
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Nathan Senner @drgodwit.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
1/While everyone is focused on Whimbrel 😊, I am excited to share the latest from Maina Handmaker. She found that Whimbrel that commute longer distances from a nocturnal roost spend 1.5 more hours each daily in dangerous habitat and depart on migration 3-6 days later. academic.oup.com/condor/artic...
A graph showing that Whimbrel commuting longer distances spend more time commuting and foraging, but less time resting.
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Peter Santema @petersantema.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Very chuffed that our dotterel study made the front cover of Proceedings B! 🎉 Thread below: 👇
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Little Ouse Headwaters Project (LOHP) @littleouse.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Recording for nature recovery How biological recording will benefit wildlife in crisis A joint Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists' and Suffolk Naturalists’ Societies conference is taking place at Diss Corn Hall on Saturday 10th October. Booking is via sns.org.uk - link to Beacon to book tickets
sns.org.uk
Promoting interest in Suffolk's Natural History
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Tim Holt-Wilson @timholtwilson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
'Recording for nature recovery - how biological recording will benefit wildlife in crisis'. A joint conference @norfolknats.bsky.social @suffolk-nats1929.bsky.social at Diss, Norfolk, Sat Oct 10th Oct. What should bio recording look like in the future? Booking via sns.org.uk. Please share.
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Miles King @milesking.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What a farce. As farmers fail to access funds to support sustainable farming, this will undoubtedly mean valuable wildlife habitat (recently created or much older) will be destroyed, as farmers feel they have no option but to intensify their farming systems. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘Worse than the scramble for Oasis tickets’: England’s sustainable farming funds run out in just six hours
Entire £233m budget for 2026 allocated in less than a day, leaving thousands of farmers disappointed
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Jen Gill @jengill.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Latest Wadertales blog on the amazing new IBIS (@bou.org.uk) paper from Camilo Carneiro and over 50 co-authors, bringing together tracking data for Whimbrels across the world: blog: wadertales.wordpress.com/2026/09/22/w... paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #ornithology
wadertales.wordpress.com
World-wide Whimbrels
When Camilo Carneiro and colleagues started to write a 2026 paper about global movements of Whimbrel, in 2024, there was just one species. By the time they finished there were two, with the America…
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Graham Appleton @wadertales.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
New Whimbrel blog - another member of the curlew family is in trouble. Inspiring example of global collaboration, amassing information to help with species conservation. wadertales.wordpress.com/2026/09/22/w... Paper in IBIS: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #ornithology
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Journal of Vertebrate Biology @jvertbiol.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
🐦🌊 Tracking 65 birds from 11 species found that most sea crossings happened at night and at low altitudes - overlapping with offshore wind turbine rotors 👉 doi.org/10.1111/con4... #ornithology #birdmigration @pdvsky.bsky.social @pauldufour80.bsky.social @piedflynet.bsky.social @rafnuss.bsky.social
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Suffolk Naturalists’ Society @suffolk-nats1929.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The final line-up of speakers at the joint 'Suffolk Naturalists' Society' and the 'Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Society' Conference on 10th October now includes Mark Bowler from University of Suffolk. Details attached. Open to non-members. Book now - sns.org.uk/sns-meetings...
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Swiss Ornithological Institute @vogelwarte.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
In a new report, @pauldufour80.bsky.social et al analyzed data from 411 migratory landbirds to quantify the proportion of migratory flights at night. They found that nocturnal migration is the dominant strategy in small- to medium sized landbirds. doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...
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Nick Acheson @themarshtit.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
We did a thing swla.co.uk/support-us/t...
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Dawn Balmer @debalmer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Always enjoy visiting RSPB Frampton Marsh and today clocked up 67 species for #BirdTrack Superb Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Merlin, 2 Whinchat, Stonechat, 50 Pinks, 25 Yellow Wags, 150+ Mipits and a stunning White Wagtail. Water in reedbed but rest very dry. #LincsBirding @lincsbirding.bsky.social
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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Such an impressive compilation of data from tracked birds across (most of) the global range and diversity of Whimbrel in this new collaborative paper in Ibis: look at the map - so many major transoceanic movements onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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William (Bill) Sutherland @billsutherland.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Is remarkable how a whole community of migratory fish has largely disappeared. Here we discuss the five different strategies. youtu.be/pSac_QGEMbE?...
youtu.be
The Decline of Migratory Fish: Causes and Solutions
YouTube video by Bill Sutherland's Conservation Concepts
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Jonathan C Slaght @jonathanslaght.com · 16/09/2026
perpetual villainy www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/c...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Moves to Gut a Core Endangered Species Protection
An internal memo reinterprets the law so that only the intentional killing of animals, not collateral harm, is illegal.
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Nils Warnock @dunlin.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Hudsonian Whimbrel are migrating through the coast of Central California right now. Stinson Beach, CA. ##birds #shorebirds
Hudsonian Whimbrel on the beach
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Nils Warnock @dunlin.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
If you are interested in shorebird migration patterns, especially Whimbrel, see Camilo et al.'s new paper - doi.org/10.1111/ibi....
doi.org
A global perspective on the annual cycles of whimbrels
Comparative analyses are central to understanding broad-scale patterns in avian ecology, yet their application is often constrained by fragmented and uneven data availability. Recent advances in trac...
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Gary Allport @birdsandlife.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Steppe Whimbrel - remember this? The tracking data now part of an amazing collaborative study of all tracks of whimbrels globally, put together by Camilo Carniero just published in Ibis. Still a big data gap in Southern and Eastern Africa onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Migratory routes of tracked whimbrels with the breeding (triangles pointing downwards), wintering (triangles pointing upwards) and stopover sites (spring: circles; autumn: diamonds). Stopover symbol sizes represent duration in days. Each subspecies is represented by a distinct colour, with undetermined by grey symbols and dashed tracks. The coloured polygons at high northern latitudes illustrate the longitudinal ranges considered to assign subspecies with exception of N. p. alboaxillaris (see Table 2; note that presumed overlapping subspecies N. p. phaeopus– rogachevae and N. p. rogachevae– variegatus are not labelled). Repeated individual tracks are shown but not included in statistical analysis. The map is presented in an equal area projection, which retains the relative size of areas.
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Graham Appleton @wadertales.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Dotterel. Nearly 1000km beteen nesting attempts. wadertales.wordpress.com/2026/09/15/b... WaderTales blog #159 #ornithology
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Little Ouse Headwaters Project (LOHP) @littleouse.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
We’re pleased to share that we’ve received funding through Anglian Water’s Thriving Communities Fund. Funding will support the 3rd year (2028) of our 'Ponds for the Future' Project on Webbs Fen #ThrivingCommunities #CommunityFunding #EnvironmentalAction #LocalImpact www.lohp.org.uk/post/thrivin...
lohp.org.uk
Thriving Communities Fund - Grant Success
Little Ouse Headwaters Project (LOHP) has been awarded funding through Anglian Water’s Thriving Communities Fund
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Nicola Crockford @numenini.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
THANKS: BBC Countryfile's Anil Olgun, Joe Davies & whole team who made filming my river snorkelling as fun as could be (33 mins in, www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...), Fi Cotter-Craig, hostess with the mostest & esp. Alec Birkbeck who created the wonderland that is the River Nar at West Acre. #MySwim 🧵
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Nicola Crockford @numenini.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
#CtenophoreCtuesday
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Journal of Applied Ecology @jappliedecology.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
One-size-fits-all agri-environment scheme policies fall short for UK waders 🐦 New analysis shows that nesting season varies by species and latitude: targeted, evidence-based agricultural exclusions are key to protecting farmland breeding waders 🔑 Read the full article 👇 doi.org/10.1111/1365...
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Peter Santema @petersantema.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
New #ornithology paper out in @ecography.bsky.social! The tendency of birds to return to the same breeding area in different years varies wildly among species. We show that breeding site fidelity is much lower in #shorebirds nesting in the #Arctic tundra than in those nesting in other habitats. 1/n
Map showing the geographic locations of shorebird populations included in the study, alongside four Arctic-breeding shorebird species with low breeding-site fidelity: Red Phalarope, Long-billed Dowitcher, White-rumped Sandpiper, and Pectoral Sandpiper.
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Plantlife @plantlifeuk.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The UK’s largest citizen science fungi survey, #WaxcapWatch, is back!🍄 It’s really easy to take part. Just head out to a grassy spot and record any waxcaps and grassland fungi you find. Join today 👉 www.plantlife.org.uk/waxcapwatch/
Two red fungi growing amongst some grass. The title reads 'Join the UK's largest citizen science fungi survey'
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Onder water in Leiden.nl @owinleiden.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
A lot like the ones I see, snorkeling in our urban canals in Leiden, NL, but also very different. Ty for sharing. onderwaterinleiden.nl/mediafotofil...
freshwater sponge in an urban canal, green 'fingers' forming a structure on a piece of treebranch freshwater sponge in an urban canal: green 'fingers' growing on the canal wall,  with small perch and white water lily stems in the backgroundfreshwater sponge in an urban canal, green 'fingers' forming a structure on a piece of treebranch, growing towards the light.
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Nicola Crockford @numenini.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
If Billy Goats Gruff crossed, trip trap, Iron Bridge over River Little Ouse btw hamlets of Little Ouse, Cambs & Brandon Bank, Norfolk, instead of a troll lurking under, these friendly Perch. Unsure why they're "yawning" as they gave impression that I'm v interesting. youtu.be/2J9eU7BASxc #MySwim 🧵
youtu.be
Friendly Perch, with passing Roach, at the Iron Bridge from Little Ouse village to Brandon Bank
YouTube video by Nicola Crockford
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Biological Recording Company @biologicalrecording.co.uk · 12/09/2026
The Curlew’s haunting call is becoming rarer across Britain’s uplands. On 14 Sep, Prof Ian Newton shares research into why Curlews are declining, where they still breed successfully and the role of grouse moor management. FREE webinar www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1987186150... @curlewaction.bsky.social
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Paul Green Wildwire @paulgreenwildwire.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I have enjoyed these so much.I rarely get to see Pale Bellied Brent Geese in Suffolk.A few pictures from Lowestoft Seafront today . #suffolkbirds #birding #geese
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Global Flyway Network @globalflyway.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Understanding the conservation importance of wetlands comes from understanding the variations in use and the causes of it. #GlobalFlywayNetwork maintained 19 years of vigilance in northern Bohai Bay, and shown its importance and key determining factors. www.globalflywaynetwork.org/publication/...
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Chris Rose @campaignstrat.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Skeins of Pink Footed Geese coming in high from the east today over Wells in Norfolk. A wonderful presence. Doubtless more around. Autumn has arrived. @wildernorfolk.bsky.social @themarshtit.bsky.social @jakefiennes.bsky.social
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Ariel Brunner @arielbrunner.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Good coverage of our new milestone assessment of the state of migratory birds www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
One in nine migratory birds threatened with extinction, global report says
Findings on decline of species such as Arctic tern and turtle dove published alongside flyways pledge at Kenya summit
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BirdLife International @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Discover the State of the World’s Birds!🐦 This sixth edition by BirdLife International focuses on migratory birds and their flyways, and what they reveal about the state of nature, the drivers of biodiversity loss, and the solutions needed to reverse declines.🗺️ Find it here👉 sowb.birdlife.org
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Stu Butchart @stubutchart.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Migratory birds know no borders. They provide a warning but also a source of hope. Find out more in the latest State of the World’s Birds, which @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social launched today sowb.birdlife.org
sowb.birdlife.org
State of the World’s Birds | BirdLife
BirdLife International’s report on the state of the world's birds — trends, pressures, and conservation responses.
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