February is a good month to see our smallest goose, the brent, or brant. This diminutive species is about the same size as a mallard and much smaller than its greylag and pink-footed cousins. In the winter, the UK and Ireland host two distinct subspecies, or races. These are split between a number of traditional …
This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. Although I’m not a twitcher (more on that later), most Januarys see me head out near the start of the month for a birding ‘big day’. I usually pick a few sites and try to see …
I wrote a while ago about some of our recent bird colonists, including little egrets and ring-necked parakeets. Some of these recent colonisers, though, are actually birds that used to breed here but were driven to extinction before returning. These include some of our most charismatic raptor species. A few raptor species managed to cling …
Growing up in the south of England, I didn’t get to see my first dipper until I moved to Ireland in my late 20s. And what a bird to be missing out on! It may be small, but it has bags of character and a dapper appearance. Its lifestyle is also unique among our passerines, …
September is one of my favourite months because it means that our wintering wader numbers are really starting to build up. Birds that breed in the UK are joined by many more individuals from further north, filling our estuaries and saltmarshes with their bustling figures and plaintive cries. One of the most visible, and audible, …
Over the last 150 years a number of bird species have begun breeding in the UK either for the first time ever or the first time in many years. Some of these have been introduced by man, deliberately or accidentally. Others got here under their own steam. Many of our most recent arrivals are almost …
This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. Every summer, UK tabloids set out to demonise the UK’s ‘seagulls’. To these papers, our gulls are aggressive vermin, out to steal our chips and ice creams. For many birdwatchers, though, they are admirable and beautiful …
August 4th is International Owl Awareness Day, so what better bird of the month for August than the barn owl? One of five species of owl in the UK, the barn owl is paradoxically both instantly recognisable and yet rarely seen by most of us. Once encountered, though, they are never forgotten. Their ghostly, silent …
July’s bird of the month is the black guillemot. Non-birders are probably not as familiar with this dapper little auk as its showbiz cousin the puffin. It is probably also less well known than the common guillemot and razorbill due to its much smaller range. However, it is a fascinating seabird and approaches life in …
This content contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, I may earn an affiliate commission. It is easy to assume that most non-humans conform to a basic breeding model. Boys court girl, most impressive boy wins girl, he passes on his genes and then he may or may not stick around …