Colin Beale

@cmbeale.bsky.social

3485 Followers 1257 Following

Ecologist, ornithologist & nature lover. Professor of ecology & conservation at the University of York. Author of 101 Curious Tales of East African Birds. Chair of A Rocha UK.

A very smart Lesser Black-backed Gull on a rocky rise with green background with very blurry puffins behind. It's a smart bird, with a shiny white head and undersides, smooth slate grey back outlined in white, with black wings with tiny white diamond tips. What makes it cute are the yellow legs and beak, as well as beady yellow eye. If you zoom in you'll see there's a fine red rim around the eye, which is either lovely eyeliner, or the sign of a heavy night accounting for the perhaps slightly angry look.
Card showing title of talk and time - ethical frameworks for high-tech biodiversity monitoring in lower-income nations
Extraordinary AI generated image of two of what we are to assume are antelopes rather like impala, one is climbing on a dry brach like a cheetah. This one has one normal horn that it could have stolen from a Kob, and another that, bizarrely, splits in two half way up creating a langoustine like claw. The lower individual looks slightly scared - as well it might with a monster like this poised for the kill. There are some very large flowers on the wide, adding an even more surrel scaling to the whole image. Don't do this folk. We provided a very nice set of images that I'd given permission for people to use. What weird system automates this dross!
A baby elephant peeps out from between its mother's legs. This little innocent has yet to form any opinions about funding, unless it involves more milk from mama. It is pretending to drink water and flapping its ear, because that's what all the cool elephants do.
Figure from the paper showing the proportion of total donor funding for each objective across all countries when optimizing for each return on investment (ROI) objective (at 150 M USD for 5 years) in comparison to the “most recent” business as usual. BAU allocation was rarely the most efficient use of limited financial resources. The greatest proportion of country level funding per objective (0.38) was in Zimbabwe the sum of funding proportion for each objective (colored bar) across all countries is equal to 1. Only countries that received donor funding are shown. Some major differences are as in the text.
Here's a yound elephant pretending to be big and scary by flapping her ears forward. She is angry to hear that funding is not being allocated optimally, she's young, has the whole of live in front of her and is thining of the future where she's funded to have all the baby elephants she can. And she's maybe mildly irritated by a fly on her right shoulder.
An elephant looks puzzled while standing in knee high vegetation and under a tree. He's probably pondering whether the money spent on elephant conservation is optimally shared with his colleagues elewhere and may be slightly disappointed to know that actually he doesn't get any of that cold hard cash at all. It's a difficult life being an elephant and if he had the money he might choose a very different way to spend it. On very large amounts of recreational drugs, for instance. He is a bit ragged around the ears as through he enjoyed fights, but maybe some plastic surgery and ear reconstruction is what he really wants?
A long-eared owl in the hand for ringing. It is down from tummy upwards starting over its shoulder at the camera with piercing orange eyes. This is a powerful floofball that is perfectly camouflaged as a tree trunk with browns, and gets everywhere.
Poster advertising the Arican Raptor Leadership Grant - African antionals applying for MSc or Hons courses at AP LEventis Ornithological Research Institute (Nigeria), Fitzpatric Institute of African Ornithology (UCT, South Africa) or Mohammed V University (Morocco) are invited to apply via https://raptorresearchfoundation.org
I mean, look at this cute floofball! Isn't it adorable? So floofy grey below and pinky dumpy above. Just a ball with a silly tail attached.
EVEN MORE LONG_TAILED TITS! There's no end to the cuteness
A graph from https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1815873115 showing that the proportion of fledglings that make it to breed is massively higher for the females that move ~2km compared to thsoe staying within 500m of their nest.
Closer up of three - they're so teeny and cute! Long graduated black with thite-finged tailed better on show here as they use their tiny conical beaks to shred the fat balls.
Here they are again - so many tails all sticking out!
7 long-tailed tits crowding onto fat balls. They are themselves floofballs, with a slightly pinkish white underside, blank wings with a white stripe, pink back and cute black eyebrow over beady black eyes as well a tail amost twice the length of their body. Very VERY cute.
Posing male elephant, looking might strong with some pretty hefty tusks too.
A fine elephant in Ghana stands on a dusty path.
Close up of elephant calf just starting to grow tusks next to it's mother's trunk. I think it is cute.
Elephant showing his tusks nicely, while swimming in a lake. Ivory is most beautiful on an elephant...
A family of elephants at a waterhole viewed from about toe height. with a baobab behind them. These are coold beasts!
A pic of a some birds at a waterhole. THere are several species, so it demonstrates diversity. But do we need excuses to post pics of ducks, ibis, storks and geese?
A Ruppell's griffon vulture in a cloud of flies comes down to land. It's huge and broad winged, flying towards the camera. Mostly brown, with white legs and a fluffy white head. Hard to say it's cute, but strangely, as it has become rarer it has likely INCREASED beta diversty in Africa.
Graphs showing the change in species contributions to spatial beta-diversity between time periods totalled by occurrence frequency quartiles (first column) and for individual species (second column). Rows are different species datasets. The summed contributions clearly show negative impact of species change for species found in 50% of sites, strong impacts for the large nubmers of localised species and little overall impact from widespread and often introduced species.
Graphs showing the relative contributions of each species to spatial beta-diversity (Hellinger transformed total variance) in the two time periods compared to the proportion of sites each species was recorded in. Data shown for North American birds, South African plants, European pollen samples, Pacific coastal benthos and UK mammals. There are obviously humped shapes in the top figures, confirming individual species contributions are greatest around 50%, though with more nested datasets the relationship doesn't come down so much at high occupancy.
Yellow-collared Lovebirds - two small green parrots with yellow breasts and collars and black heads. White eyelinter and a sharp red beak. They're cute. Mnay lovebirds are kept as pets but escape sometimes and have colonised lots of places they weren't in before.
A male pochard from above. He has a rusty red head, grey back and black breast and rear with a dapper blue beak. Very fine.
A black-shouldered Kite sites in a thorn tree in front of an otherworldly orange background. It is a stunning white, gret and black bird that looks SO FIERCE. A gooed axample of a nomaid bird species too...
A pink flower iwth normal petals, a large central optning with a yellow pollen spike, but two ver long spurs going our either side of the flower.
Two maps of south Africa showing the locations of one of the bee species - just a few small areas in the East. The Area of Occurrence is computed from the SDM, and the Extent of Occurrence from the raw data, showing greater risks from extent. The right hand map overlays the dsitributions and EOO with protected areas.
A conceptual diagram illustrating the two approaches used to assess the IUCN Red List status of specialist oil-collecting bees. The starting point for both approaches is the compilation of georeferenced occurrence data for the species. Here, we use Rediviva vogeli as an example. IUCN-based approach (top sequence, left to right): To estimate the Extent of Occurrence (EOO), a minimum convex hull polygon is plotted around the occurrence records. The resulting EOO map is then intersected with national spatial datasets to evaluate the decline in the “area, extent, and/or quality of habitat,” corresponding to Subcriterion b(iii) of IUCN Criterion B. First, the EOO is reduced to 59.4% of its initial area as a consequence of habitat loss. Overlaying threatened habitats on what remains reveals that 29.1% of remaining habitat is threatened, suggesting a high risk of further habitat loss. Finally, we overlay the EOO with the current protected area network and find that only 5.6% of the EOO is currently protected. SDM-based approach (bottom sequence, left to right): Occurrence data and environmental variables are used to generate species distribution models (SDMs), from which the Area of Occupancy (AOO) is estimated. The resulting AOO map is also intersected with national spatial datasets to assess habitat condition under Subcriterion b(iii) of Criterion B. First, the AOO is reduced to 67.4% of its initial area as a consequence of habitat loss. Overlaying threatened habitats on what remains reveals that 22.1% of remaining habitat is threatened, suggesting a high risk of further habitat loss. Finally, we overlay the AOO with the current protected area network and find that only 22.1% of the AOO is currently protected. The two approaches, combined with expert knowledge where available, informs the assessment of species status under IUCN Criterion B: Endangered (EN) using the IUCN-approach; and Vulnerable (VU) using the SDM-approach
We've reached the bottom of the thread, so here's an elephant foot. It is grey with large toenails and no signs of butter.
Elephants wear ivory best, even if (as here) they only have the one remaining tusk. This elephant is standing in font of rather lush green vegetation and staring at us. He's big.
Digital "Yantra" from Mercy is Power campaign - three coloured images with Thai writing. The red denotes power, green wealth and yellow protection. Which would you like?
Elephants, wildebeest and a bunch of other animals at a water hold in Tanzania. They're cute and should stay alive.
Glossy ibis in a bank, such in a lake. Terrible picture!
Figure showing the results of a bunch of fancy structural equation models linking processes imporant across savannahs. On the left is a global model where basically everything affects everything else, on the right it is split into 5 different areas and each is simpler.
A map of Africa showing each savanna protected area as one of five possible savanna clusters grouped according to climate, soil, and landscape parameters and the various environmental groups they call into. There are lots of sites that fall into "Cluster 1" of hot, mosit savannahs, but litte research in these areas.
An attentive parent Temminck's Courser is feeding a cute chick. These are top quality birds. Give me MORE!!!!
Document that says Achievements: 140 countries have adopted net zero targets 39% capital value of global businesses with emission reduction targets aligned to the UN Paris Agreement
Rather famous scottish landscape with the west highlands railway looping through mountains. A forest plantation is evident. A few small people on the left are doing their best not to be recognised.
Pief flycatcher held for ringing - a very cure grey and white bird with striking white wing bars and huge black eyes. She's a young female, staring straight at the photographer.
A juvenile lesser whitethroat looking confused about the world, and very scruffy. It's grey and brownish, and rather cute.
Here's a baby blue tit being ringing - we do a few in nest boxes and hope to see them in our nets when they fledge. It is poking out between fingers with a cute yeelow face and greyish cap.
A baby treecreeper held for ringing. Another spotty bird, this has a cute down turned bill
A baby robin held for ringing - it is a super spotty bird, borwn with big cream spots everywhere.
Two figures, the left showing the cumulative number of unique birds ringed across the season for five years, showing that this year just squeeks in at second place overall and second place for juveniles too. On the right are plots of numbers and productivity (juvenile:adult ratios) for the 10 most common species. Productivity in tits and blackbirds has hit all time highs, with several other species close to the top too. Only Willow Warbler has bombed this year, part of a long term trend.
A graph showing how connectivity impacts occupancy of woodland species over three different levels of woodland cover. The lines show positive impacts of connectivity at 10% cover, and largel flat at 30% and 50%.
Good British woodland with strange primates. Early spring - a wild and wavy oak tree.
A figure showing how different invertebrate species show impacts in relation to woodland covr. Overall the connectivity effect is small, but all groups show it.
A woodpecker with a red back of the hear, greenish grey back and tail covered in white and yellowish spots, and offwhite with black streaks on the breast is sitting showing it's cool 2 toes forward, 2 backward desin on a thick branch.
A beautiful organce coloured beetle with black legs and antenae photographed terribly by yours truly. It is sitting on a green leaf and there are, probably, one or two bits of it that are in focus. Almost.
A curlew on a muddy shore with some seaweed. It is a fine specimen, brown streaky with a downcurved beak c. 3x the length of its head.
Poster advertising the African Raptor Leadership Grant. Applicants to AP Leventis Ornithological Research INstitute (Nigeria), UCT's Fitzpatrick Institute (South Africa) or Mohammed "V" Uni (Morocco) are encourage dto apply
Snippet says: "The Secretary of State may make the EDP only if the Secretary of State considers that the EDP passes the overall improvement test."
Highlights from the Bill: text says "35Where an identified environmental feature is a protected feature of a protected site, the EDP may, if Natural England considers it appropriate, set out conservation measures that do not directly address the environmental impact of development on that feature at that site but instead seek to improve the conservation status of the same feature elsewhere."
Text describign the nature restoration levy: The nature restoration levy 61 Commitment to pay the nature restoration levy 40(1) A developer may, at any time before development commences, make a request in writing to Natural England to pay the nature restoration levy in relation to a development to which an EDP applies.
Text describing the EDP requirements: 35An environmental delivery plan is a plan prepared by Natural England, and made by the Secretary of State, that sets out, in relation to development to which it applies— (a) the environmental features that are likely to be negatively affected by the development, (b) the conservation measures that are to be taken by or on behalf of Natural England in order to protect those environmental features, (c) the amount of the nature restoration levy payable by developers to Natural England to cover the cost of those conservation measures (see sections 51 and 61 to 70), and
Snippet saying: A spatial development strategy may specify or describe infrastructure the provision of which the strategic planning authority considers to be of strategic importance to the strategy area for the purposes of— (a) supporting or facilitating development in that area, 5(b) mitigating, or adapting to, climate change, or (c) promoting or improving the economic, social or environmental well-being of that area.