10,000 Birds
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
Counting the Birds I was in my teens when I undertook my first bird-survey: it was field work for the British Trust for Ornithology’s The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland. The breeding and wintering birds of Britain and Ireland. The breeding and wintering birds of Britain and Ireland.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 4, 2016
It also makes it a little intimidating to be doing a review of Britain’s Birds: An Identification Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland. The Crossley ID Guide: Britain and Ireland (PUP, 2014) covers 314 birds that reside in or migrate regularly through England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and a few rare birds.
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10,000 Birds
JULY 12, 2024
Blackbirds sing from February through to July My UK list is, in reality, an English list, as I haven’t wandered into the adjoining countries of Wales, Scotland and Ireland this year, and I have no plans to do so. I see lots of Golden Plovers in the winter, but (like so many waders) they are birds transformed when in their breeding finery.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 1, 2024
Black-tailed godwits winter in large numbers on the estuaries of both Norfolk and Suffolk, and we know that nearly all these birds breed in Iceland. In breeding plumage islandica godwits develop a deeper red plumage than their limosa cousins. Did it then move on to Ireland? Was this where it spent its winters?
10,000 Birds
MARCH 8, 2024
Secondly, much of the appeal is that this is a bird we don’t see in the UK very often, for Waxwings are an irruptive species, and in most years only a few ever reach our shores from their breeding grounds in the boreal forests of Scandinavia. I’ve managed to see them, too, on their breeding grounds in Finland in summer.
10,000 Birds
FEBRUARY 9, 2023
Here in the southeast of Europe where I live, woodpeckers appear slim, but up there in Ireland where the painter Killian Mullarney lives, they may more commonly fluff up their feathers to keep more air for insulation and this new ball-like appearance (literally!) may be more usual for northern Europe?
10,000 Birds
MARCH 2, 2023
I am not sure about the security situation in Iraq these days but at least some people do ornithological research there – resulting in papers such as one titled “Breeding observations of the Black-winged Kite Elanus caeruleus (Desfontaines , 1789) in Iraq” Impressive.
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