Join the SOS and get THREE Sussex Bird Reports in your first year!
We are able to offer new members the opportunity to sign up to the SOS and receive both the 2023 and 2024 Bird Reports now – and the 2025 Report when it is published in the autumn.
Go to sos.org.uk/membership-a...
#sussexbirds
The Woodpecker Network is encouraging birders to detect Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers by using passive acoustic sound recorders:
We need to check the Sussex yews: Sherwood Rough and Kingley Vale. @sussexornitholo.bsky.social
In a rare feat, Honey-buzzards were filmed on a nest in Sussex last year, allowing their behaviour to be recorded in intimate detail.
Great footage from a project funded by @sussexornitholo.bsky.social
https://f.mtr.cool/iebmyzxuro
A recent grant award by Sussex Ornithology helped provide equipment to document Sussex Honey-buzzards in 2025.
Read all about it and watch the video here on our new website;
sos.org.uk/news/honey-b...
#Sussexbirds
Drake American Wigeon with Eurasian Wigeon
Drake American Wigeon with Eurasian Wigeon
Lesser Whitethroat (halimodendri)
My first local patch American Wigeon at Scotney today, many thanks to the finder Barrie Puttock for letting me know it was present when I met him in Dennis's Hide.
The Lesser Whitethroat (halimodendri) still around the garden.
Helena Dollimore MP raised the issue of Bio-beads at Prime Minister's Question Time.
🚨Deadline to sign the petition in 26 January 2026🚨
Sign here: www.helenadollimore.com/binthebeads
#BinTheBeads
Do you have lots of blackthorn and sloes locally, mixed with hawthorn? If so, check for split stones, a sign that Hawfinches are present, as here at Ardingly. Watch from just before sunrise to actually see the birds. @sussexwildlife.bsky.social @sussexornitholo.bsky.social @kneppwilding.bsky.social
Can you help your Society by taking on a volunteer role?
We urgently need an Editor for the Sussex Bird Report.
We often need species account writers too, so that is another opportunity to help out.
Do please get in touch now if you’d like to find out more.
www.sos.org.uk/archives/6624
A bird sound challenge: Hawfinch recorded near Wakehurst, Sussex, with a Jay imitating Buzzard and Goshawk (?). @sussexornitholo.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social
A review of the more interesting avian happenings on Beachy Head in 2025, a decent year. Thanks to all the birders who've put the time in and shared news this year. #RareBirdsUK beachybirder.wordpress.com/2025/12/30/a...
A group of protesters holding signs against bio-bead pollution, with messages like "Stop Using Bio-Beads" and "Ban Bio-Beads Now."
A hand in a blue glove holds small, dark cylindrical pellets against a backdrop of marshland and water.
🚨 SIGN THE PETITION 🚨
We're backing MP Helena Dollimore's petition to end the use of bio-beads across the UK. Modern, safer alternatives exist – water companies must use them.
👉 Sign now: https://f.mtr.cool/ktkpksyvix
Every signature counts. Together we can protect our coastline.
Two of 15 Hawfinches at a post-roost site near Staplefield this morning. First ones arrived very early, 10 minutes before sunrise. Hornbeam, sloes, haws & field maple attract them. @sussexornitholo.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social
Great to see three of our Sussex birders involved in co-authoring the LSW paper in the Dec copy of British Birds. PAM will be an important tool in the next National Bird Atlas.
@sussexornitholo.bsky.social @britishbirds.bsky.social @mallalieum.bsky.social @kenandlindasmith.bsky.social
Can you help survey Sussex's Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers next year? @sussexornitholo.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social
A Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on the trunk of a tree. A grey box to the left features the words: New study. Bioacoustics as a tool for the detection and monitoring of a scarce woodland bird – the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. ww.bto.org/LSWBioacoustics. BTO logo is top left of the image. Image credit bottom left reads: Lesser Spotted Woodpecker © Denja1 from Getty Images via Canva.com.
1/ A new study from @lesserspotnet.bsky.social & BTO in @britishbirds.bsky.social looks at how passive acoustic monitoring is an effective way of surveying Lesser Spotted Woodpecker ➡️ www.bto.org/LSWBioacoust...
#bioacoustics #ornithology @simongillings.bsky.social @hosbirding.bsky.social
This is a brilliant initiative. Woodpecker Network is working with BTO to develop a passive acoustic monitoring module for Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. Trials have proved successful in reliably detecting their drums and calls, revealing many new locations.
This is a brilliant opportunity to support the Society and our birds. Please contact me if you'd like to know more.
Parking and entry is free but if you are not a member and you see it, a donation of a fiver would be lovely...and good value! 😀
@sussexwildlife.bsky.social
sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/make-a-diffe...
Another excellent bird report from Sussex. Thanks to everyone involved in producing such a high quality publication.
@sussexornitholo.bsky.social
The mysterious Jerdon's Courser has been rediscovered outside its known range for the first time in more than a century:
youtu.be/Rv1MuCIf3Q4 for #superseabirdsunday
@sussexwildlife.bsky.social
Photo montage of Henri Brocklebank, a Short-snouted Seahorse and a dredger vessel
Watch our Director of Conservation, Henri Brocklebank on BBC SouthEast News tonight. Find out why Sussex Wildlife Trust has launched a legal challenge to stop dumping in Marine Conservation Zone & how this exposes the current inadequate protection given to marine protected areas.
buff.ly/xMVkeK1
Super-proud of my colleagues that we are taking a stand. Marine protected sites are all too often protected in name only.
Great to be working with Leigh Day and the Environmental Law Foundation
Please read the blog for the full story and details of how you can help
@sussexwildlife.bsky.social
Some of the numerous juveniles among 44+ Hawfinches at West Dean, Sussex, this morning, feeding on beech, presumably mast. @sussexornitholo.bsky.social @sussexwildlife.bsky.social @ukrbbp.bsky.social
Red Bartsia Bees only take pollen from that plant and are mainly a chalk downland species in Sussex, but several today in a Red Bartsia-rich meadow at Weir Wood Reservoir in the High Weald, attended by their parasitic Blunthorn Nomad Bees. @sussexwildlife.bsky.social
We require a knowledgeable birdwatcher to lead the team that produces the highly respected annual Sussex Bird Report, described by @birdguides.bsky.social as ‘a gold standard of county bird reports’.
Please share with your networks.
Full brief in link here; tinyurl.com/y9nz7acd
yellow and black stripy caterpillars on ragwort
black moth with red spots
Person walking past clumps of yellow ragwort
Ragwort is a valuable haven for wildlife, when allowed to grow in the right places, & a crucial foodplant for the Cinnabar Moth caterpillar - whose numbers have been in decline. We leave Ragwort to grow on our reserves whenever possible. Read more here
📷Alan Price, Bob Eade
buff.ly/5QSTIOK
One of nine juvenile Goshawks seen over 16 sq. km of Sussex woodland this morning, this one a female. @sussexwildlife.bsky.social @sussexornitholo.bsky.social
I left some leeks from last year to flower and the Median Wasps love them.
