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Chris Sharpe

@sharpebirder.bsky.social
198 followers 140 following 206 posts

Conservation biologist: threatened birds, Redlists, bird vocalisations, RAPs & surveys, shorebirds. Working in 🇻🇪 & Latin America since 1988. Made in The North 🇬🇧.

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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Crazy times for Venezuela under US suzerainty.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Common Quail (Coturnix coturnix) singing yesterday evening becomes the 100th bird recorded at our S Norfolk house. I first found the species around here during a @btobirds.bsky.social Turtle Dove survey—attached recording made in the same area five years ago. macaulaylibrary.org/asset/353004...
macaulaylibrary.org
ML353004191 - Common Quail - Macaulay Library
Macaulay Library ML353004191; © Chris Sharpe; Norfolk, England, United Kingdom
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
England's first legally designated freshwater bathing site...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Two corrupt regimes in perfect harmony: no transparency or control of US extraction of $8+ billion of oil, gold and other resources from its recently acquired viceroyalty of Venezuela, with undisclosed payments laundered through an opaque Qatari 'short-term' account. www.cfr.org/articles/the...
cfr.org
The U.S. Took Over Venezuela’s Oil Industry. Where Has All the Money Gone? | Council on Foreign Relations
The American and Venezuelan people remain in the dark about how the Trump administration is controlling billions of dollars of Venezuelan oil revenue. Without accountability mechanisms or a clear demo...
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Reposted by Chris Sharpe
Henry Cook @hcbirding.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Incredible views of a migrating Common Quail as it flew past the ship in the English Channel! @sophieshrike.bsky.social
Common Quail flies over the sea with wings outstretched. It is a small brown streaky gamebird.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
The wheat harvest in some parts of East Anglia is looking a little thin on the ground... #climatechange
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
"Americans should be cleareyed about what the president is doing. He is taking their money and showering it on criminals." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
More incisive journalism from the Fox News [sic] host who advocates "bombing or gassing" the United Nations.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
"we found mutualism values (seeing wildlife as part of one’s social community) prevail in Iberian-origin Latin American countries, whereas domination values (seeing wildlife as a resource for human use) are more prevalent in British-origin North American countries." www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Enduring cultural legacies affect Euro-American wildlife values - Nature Sustainability
Little is known about how values emerge, evolve and affect people’s relation with their natural environment. A study now sheds light on the influence of the institutions of European colonization on pr...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
This year we have a garden Blackcap (Sylvia atticapilla) with such a lovely opulent song, so rich with mimicry that today @cornellbirds.bsky.social Merlin identifies Garden Warbler, Song Thrush, Robin, Nightingale and House Sparrow in its repertoire! A joy to hear! #ornithology
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Arguably not the primary motivation, but this would catapult the USA to #1 megadiversity country...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Regrettably 'Fraudubon' was an unreliable narrator, but his artwork is still breathtaking... This copy recently photographed at Cambridge University Library: www.facebook.com/share/p/1HAa... #ornithology
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Reposted by Chris Sharpe
NPR @npr.org · 12/05/2026
The three high-school birders, dubbed The Pete Dunnelins, have one day to count as many bird species across the state of New Jersey as physically possible. Here's what it takes. n.pr/49IeEWd
n.pr
24 hours with 3 teenage birders: Welcome to the World Series of Birding
The three high-school birders, dubbed The Pete Dunnelins, have one day to count as many bird species across the state of New Jersey as physically possible. Here's what it takes.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
"Natural England recognises the value of White Stork as a visible and charismatic species in engaging people with nature but releases of this species are not a priority for us." 👏👏👏 #ornithology naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2026/05/08/w...
naturalengland.blog.gov.uk
White stork, black stork and other vagrant bird species
By Jeremy Sabel and Matt Heydon Natural England’s Species Recovery & Reintroductions Team Projects involving the release of white stork Ciconia ciconia capture the public imagination. If fairy tales a...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
It's perhaps understandable that an embittered man whose father, Baron Young of Dartington, had to pull strings to get him into Oxford Uni on poor grades should be deeply envious of someone who has made such an impact on our world. dailysceptic.org/2026/05/12/t...
dailysceptic.org
The Descent of Attenborough – The Daily Sceptic
As David Attenborough turns 100, Ben Pile looks back on the "national treasure's" worst moments of climate alarmism, such as when he blamed Ethiopia's famine on the country having "too many people".
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Politicos indulging in this level of crass disinformation are inherently unfit for public office. Is this just ignorance on the part of one ill-informed rogue local candidate or a deliberate, coordinated and well-financed attempt to deceive? #climatescience
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UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) @ukceh.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Long-term data from UKCEH reveal that Windermere has warmed by 1.5°C in the past 80 years. Find out more as TV presenter Helen Skelton joins our scientists on the lake to see this work in action: www.ceh.ac.uk/press/worryi... 🧪
ceh.ac.uk
Worrying warming trend at Windermere over past 80 years
Long-term monitoring data collected by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) show that surface temperatures in Windermere, the largest lake in England, have warmed by 1.5 degrees in the last 8...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Four of these beauties singing on territories, together with an additional pair, in cereal fields in Cambridgeshire this morning. A strongly declining summer visitor, it has been a few years since I have seen so many in England.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Cornell Lab's BirdCast predicts 246 million birds to be airborne tonight over the USA after sunset. Bird migration is astonishing! @cornellbirds.bsky.social #ornithology
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
The US government is buying illegally mined gold from the same cartels and 'narco-terrorists' it claims to be bombing under its programme of extrajudicial executions, and laundering it into official minted US currency. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/26/w...
nytimes.com
U.S. Mint Buys Drug Cartel Gold and Sells It as ‘American’
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
There's something touching about this year's tiny Cowslip in our garden. An augury of something...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
"Venezuela's got $500 billion of gold but they've also got other critical minerals, bauxite for aluminium which we need for defence and for consumer goods. They've got coal resources that can be used to help generate power to help us win the AI arms race with China." www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04...
abc.net.au
Trump is the latest to enter a decades-long fight for this nation's gold
The stockpile is part of a longer skirmish for access to and control of a bonanza playing out an ocean away, in a country clambering to reinvent itself amid political turmoil.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
news.mongabay.com/2026/04/vene...
news.mongabay.com
Venezuela’s new mining law could spell disaster for the Amazon, critics warn
Venezuela is close to passing a law to update the country’s mining regulations and attract private investment in gold, silver, coltan and other minerals. But advocacy groups say the law may end up exa...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Is there nothing AI can't do better than humans?
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Ceding to US demands for gold and minerals, Venezuela passes the new law allowing foreign investors to expand mining operations in the Guayana Shield, a biodiversity hotspot that includes key biodiversity areas and centres of endemism. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/w...
nytimes.com
Venezuela Approves New Law to Open Mining to Foreign Investors
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
On the US viceroyalty of Venezuela by John Feeley, ex US Ambassador to Panamá. elpais.com/america/2026...
elpais.com
Venezuela: la virreina moderna y sus visitadores
La apertura de la embajada estadounidense en Caracas se asemeja más a la oficina de los emisarios de Felipe II en tiempos de la colonia que a la sede de una misión extranjera
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Reposted by Chris Sharpe
Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
A program that, to those of us on the other side of the Atlantic, has long been something we've held up as example of what could & should be done to support some of the most important types of field study. Very concerning to see this under threat
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Eurasian Curlews have some pretty impressive friends here. 👏👏👏
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Reposted by Chris Sharpe
Nick Acheson @themarshtit.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
WILLOW WARBLER is home, on a territory where every year a male sings. Each year in April this is the song that floors me, that takes me back to a wide-eyed child, falling in love for the very first time with the wild.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Crippling defunding of US environmental programmes proposed. “It's an extinction-level event for science.”. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration
Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
"The U.S. Forest Service is closing 57 of its 77 research facilities in 31 states under a reorganization plan announced this week, threatening science that looked at how wildfires, drought, pests and global warming are putting pressure on forests." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/c...
nytimes.com
Forest Service Will Close Research Stations That Study Wildfire Risk
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Given the US regime's cavalier approach to the environment and disregard for endangered conservation, Venezuelan ecologists are right to be concerned about the fate of the country's extraordinary biodiversity as a US protectorate, not least in the wake of Sec Burgum's controversial visit.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
In the early 2000s we used to lead bird tours to south Texas, spending days in several of these state and private protected areas. I was asked to take another tour this April and turned it down. Will Texas feel the economic impact of Trump's retrograde policies? www.texasobserver.org/trump-border...
texasobserver.org
After 20 Years of Resistance, Trump Is Walling Off the Rio Grande Valley
Even sites once protected by Congress, including a butterfly refuge and a historic church, are slated for fencing funded by the “one big beautiful bill”—while the river itself is transformed by a floa...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Oh, to be in England now that April's there: the quintessentially English countryside with Medieval cathedral and hundreds of bags of dog faeces.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Fishermen in the Golfete de Coro, NW Venezuela, are documenting a 40 km oil slick from badly maintained pipelines to activated refineries. These images include several candidate Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network sites. lapatilla.com/2026/03/26/v... lapatilla.com/2026/03/26/v...
lapatilla.com
VIDEO: Derrame de petróleo se extiende por más de 40 kilómetros en el mar del Golfete de Coro en Falcón
Desde el pasado 3 de marzo, se registra un derrame de crudo en la tubería submarina que alimenta al Complejo Refinador de Paraguaná (CRP) […]
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Laundering illegally mined gold suits both the US gov and its Venezuelan puppet regime—but especially their cronies who make the lucrative deals. The outlook for the world's largest tropical wilderness and its indigenous people is grave. www.occrp.org/en/feature/b...
occrp.org
Blood Gold and New Opportunities: Foreign Firms Are Poised to Reenter Venezuela's Wild South
International companies are rushing to exploit Venezuela's gold belt, but there is no clear roadmap for how they will contend with the armed groups controlling concessions. Experts warn this could for...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
A couple of Reform UK Mid-Norfolk candidates came to my door peddling the same nonsense last month, one of the reasons that company directors are at great pains to keep Reform 2025 Ltd cryptofinance secret. youtu.be/qo3MeKz-3b0
youtu.be
Trump calls environmentalists 'TERRORISTS'
YouTube video by The National Desk
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
A propos yesterday's US general licenses for critical minerals operations: "We're going to be able to control the incredible natural resources of Venezuela... If Americans need high-quality low-cost power we're always going to have access to it." youtu.be/RhtdGCQiXd4?...
youtu.be
JD Vance: Attacking Venezuela Helps the Average American
YouTube video by vpol
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
The scope for further corruption is obvious—transparency urgently needed: "“At the end of the two days, we were able to bring home $100 million of gold — physically, the gold,” the Interior secretary said." www.cnbc.com/2026/03/25/v...
cnbc.com
U.S. brought back $100 million of gold from Venezuela, Interior Secretary Burgum says
The Interior secretary said Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, wants foreign investment in the country's mining sector.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Alongside the ongoing extrajudicial executions carried out illegally by the US regime, this bombing and brutalisation of innocent campesinos seems almost tame and unremarkable. Bad news for Ecuador though. This is a village in which I stayed on fieldwork years ago. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/w...
nytimes.com
The U.S. Said It Helped Bomb a Drug Camp. It Was a Dairy Farm.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Last week Wader Study published the results of ongoing shorebird research, led by Sandra Giner, that I became involved in from 2016. We identify 27 priority sites of which 17 potentially fulfil Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network criteria. #ornithology www.waderstudygroup.org/article/20079/
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Human rights and environmental NGOs reject the proposed new Mining Law in Venezuela. The concept of 'ecomining', championed for years by Venezuela's de facto regime and legitimised here, has caused irreparable environmental damage in S Venezuela. ecopoliticavenezuela.org/el-proyecto-...
ecopoliticavenezuela.org
Pronunciamiento público sobre el proyecto de ley orgánica de minas - Observatorio de Ecología Política de Venezuela
El Proyecto de Ley Orgánica de Minas institucionaliza el ecocidio y el blanqueo del «Oro de Sangre» en Venezuela Caracas, Venezuela 23 de marzo, 2026 Las organizaciones de la sociedad civil, defensore...
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International Wader Study Group @waderstudy.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Shorebird conservation in Venezuela: status, threats and priorities NEW SYNTHESIS/REVIEW by Giner and Sharpe www.waderstudygroup.org/article/20079/ #waders #shorebirds #ornithology #research #conservation
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
I am a human non-passive acoustic monitor for biodiversity research and I approve this message! 😉 doi.org/10.1111/2041... #ornithology
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Acoustic indices are not useful for biodiversity research
Biodiversity assessment using passive acoustic monitoring has historically been challenging due to the limited availability of multi-species acoustic detectors. In this context, acoustic indices w...
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Disgraced ex-PM Johnson was paid $325,000 to meet with Maduro in 2024 under circumstances he tried to cover up. Johnson-Maduro negotiations were financed by Merlyn Advisors whose CEO Maarten Petermann is a trustee of the Aspinall Foundation found guilty of financial irregularities.
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Jim Whittington🔥 @jimwhittington.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
I've been thinking about this horror done to Smokey for 24 hours now and I am even more irate. These guys do nothing but shit on the wildland fire culture that took decades to build, and Smokey is part of that. GTFO with the tats and the 47 hat. 1/
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
A great new Neotropical Birding (#38) has just arrived, a combination of dependably high quality staples with wonderful feature articles that really push the frontiers. Please read and support or join! Well done again @jameslowenwild.bsky.social @neobirdconserve.bsky.social! #ornithology
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
People seem shocked that torture, repression and human rights violations continue in Venezuela as a US protectorate under puppet government 🤔. The main change since 3 Jan is simply that the authoritarian regimes of Washington and Caracas are now closely aligned with common goals.
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NPR @npr.org · 20/03/2026
Three major new studies on democracy and freedom all find the U.S. is slipping further away from democracy. Leaders of two of those studies say President Trump's goal is to rule as an autocrat. n.pr/4uG99Am
n.pr
Trump is dismantling democracy at 'unprecedented' speed, global report finds
Three major new studies on democracy and freedom all find the U.S. is slipping further away from democracy. Leaders of two of those studies say President Trump's goal is to rule as an autocrat.
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Chris Sharpe @sharpebirder.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Fieldwork beginning, but my 'Shorebird Conservation in Venezuela' T-shirts—a gift from Sandra Giner years ago—are full of holes. If we want shorebirds, conservation funders should be dramatically increasing finance for Venezuela, not cutting it. Don't punish researchers! #ornithology
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