White-tailed Eagles over the garden yesterday morning. Red Kites purposefully left in shot for a sense of scale! 👀

Also only one of a handful of times I've heard WTE call - such a bizarre, almost wader-like yelping!

More Hawfinches, I hear you cry? Oh go on then!

A few recent photos of these chunky beauties, mostly taken from home. Last photo of the one in flight was at @kneppwilding.bsky.social yesterday morning.

Thanks to @therusticranger.bsky.social for capturing me in my natural habitat at @kneppwilding.bsky.social.

Tom's view vs my view 😄🦫

Note in the photo here the left-hand bird was clearly interrupted mid-meal! This is very exciting as it proves what we had been suspecting; that the rewilded scrubland landscape at Knepp is not only providing a resurgent sanctuary for scarce breeding species such as Nightingale and Turtle Dove...

Rummaging through the leaf litter under the hedges I was very pleased to find plenty of split sloe stones, sliced open by the finches' incredibly powerful bills (capable of exerting over 60kg of pressure per square inch!).

Inquisitive Exmoor pony on my winter bird survey at @kneppwilding.bsky.social yesterday 🐴

Some Hawfinch photos from home recently. Up to three of these normally elusive, chunky finches have been regularly visiting the yew tree in our neighbour's garden since Christmas.

It really is an incredible treat to be seeing these wonderful birds on an almost daily basis at the moment 😍

Like so many named days throughout the year, so called 'Blue Monday' came about as the result of an advertising campaign twenty years ago. Don't buy into it. There is beauty and wonder to be found in nature every day, and it costs nothing!

I particularly recommend spending some time watching pigs 🐷

Thank you Citizen Zoo for a thoroughly hopeful and inspiring two days!

"To rewild is to restore hope for nature and people."

It can be hard to sum up the concepts and ideas involved in rewilding in short, buzzy phrases but I think this one with which Jacinto Mathe closed his brilliant presentation at the Rewilding Futures conference this morning does it pretty well.

Great first day at the Citizen Zoo #RewildingFutures conference! Lovely to see so many friends from across the community together in one place and lots of inspiring talks.

Also, in the University Museum of Zoology, a stark reminder of why we do what we do... (Great Auk skeletons)

Bring on day two!

Portraits of Whooper Swans from High Fen Wildland last week 🦢🦢🦢
www.nattergal.co.uk/high-fen-wil...