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Experts warn increase in enhanced photos on birding platforms creating fake sightings, threatening credibility of tool used by scientists

For many birdwatchers, recording a species outside its normal range is the holy grail. In the UK, the discoveries often make national headlines. The western reef heron, for example, usually found in Africa and southern Europe, was spotted in a seaside town in north Wales in June, and widely celebrated on birding forums.

But a new scourge is threatening to disrupt the fun: AI slop.

Scientists are appealing to birders to limit their use of AI when editing images over fears that it could undermine the credibility of popular citizen science platforms such as iNaturalist and Macaulay Library, which are routinely used in scientific research to monitor species’ habitat range.

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Lees points to the example of a false sighting of a red-winged blackbird in central Brazil, which is usually found in North America and had never been seen in this area of Brazil until the reported sighting. The bird was, in fact, an epaulet oriole – a common new world bird species – but the photographer had asked an AI platform to make the picture “look better”, which is when parts of the red-winged blackbird were added, resulting in the false sighting.

Blinded and broken, Sunny the owl becomes another casualty of Russia’s war 

Russia sent kamikaze drones to attack the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia in February. They hit buildings and killed several people. One unreported victim of the bombardment was a male long-eared owl, blinded in one eye and found with a badly broken wing. A passerby scooped up the stunned bird, put him in a box and took him to the city of Dnipro.

The owl – nicknamed Sunny – is now recovering in a cosy room belonging to Veronica Konkova. No longer able to fly or hunt, Sunny instead hops around.

Konkova said: “The fracture was so bad his left wing had to be amputated. The vet diagnosed brain trauma. Sunny doesn’t react normally to light.”

Sverige har under det senaste året upplevt en alarmerande ökning av sprängdåd kopplade till kriminalitet. Trots detta är Sverige inte det land i Europa som drabbats värst – det är Nederländerna. Orsakerna bakom explosionerna skiljer sig dock från situationen i Sverige.

Nederländerna har rapporterat 678 explosioner fram till till och med juni 2025, vilket är mer än sex gånger fler än de 104 explosioner som inträffat i Sverige under samma period, visar siffror som SVT tagit fram. Det sätter Sverige på andra plats i Europa.

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Orsakerna till de många explosionerna i Nederländerna skiljer sig från situationen i Sverige. Även om metoderna liknar de i Sverige, där unga pojkar ofta används som utförare, handlar det inte om konflikter mellan kriminella gäng.

I can eat sushi, pizza, samosas, kebab (kabobs, döner or shawarmas depending on your frame of reference), gyoza/pot stickers/tortellone/pasteczki (or whatever), noodles/ramen/spaghetti, knödeln/kroppkakor and so on and so on. Leaving lots of cultures unsaid.

I can enjoy music, cringy cultural movies (animated and not), fun cirque sessions (even without animals being endangered), go to festivals for various cultures, enjoin then in our cultures of scouting, mountaineering, hiking and share my love of enjoying nature.

I can drive electric cars, communicate on Internet forums, keep in touch with new friends as well as loved ones across the world.

I would be in a much poorer world without you all.

Gullig särskrivning.

From last year, as it's too early and hot for it currently.

This picture is so old that image searches turned up even worse resolutions than the one I had on my computer.

The thought struck me that I enjoy hearing seagulls squawking when I am on vacation abroad, preferably close to the sea with a fresh breeze when you open the windows… I can fall asleep to that.

But I absolutely loathe the sound of seagulls that are nesting on house roofs near my home, far from the sea. They are fighting with other birds all the time and won’t stop squawking all night which makes it hard to sleep at times.

So when I am abroad, seagulls are fine. When I’m at home, seagulls are a pest.