Birdwatch

Birdwatch magazine is the UK’s number one bird watching magazine for keen birders, featuring the latest rarity reports, ID guides, optics reviews and birding holidays, plus features and news from across the world.

Birdwatch

Editor’s Notes

Bonus digital content!

Ice-cream stop lands a mega!

Fantastic fan-tailed at Foreness! • During an evening patch visit on his bike, Simon Mount discovered a mega warbler that gave him the runaround before he eventually pinned it down.

Junco is shock county first • Chris Thaxter was in for a summer surprise when his Ely garden hosted Cambridgeshire’s first-ever North American passerine.

Singing for summer • As late summer merged into autumn, there was plenty to see across Britain and Ireland, from rare warblers and waders to exciting seabird action. Sam Viles rounds up July’s action.

Odds and ends • A number of curious records stood out in July, from a Dalmatian Pelican in the Arctic Circle to a satellite-tagged Ring-billed Gull in Latvia. Sam Viles reports.

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DAVID CAMPBELL Calling it out • It’s better to speak up when you know somebody has misidentified a bird, says our columnist, who remembers various wrong calls down the years.

MARK AVERY Good and bad news • While the recent Westminster debate on grouse shooting was anticlimactic, the decision to finally ban lead shot is most welcome, writes our columnist.

The graceful gull • Niall Keogh takes a detailed look at the much sought-after Sabine’s Gull, examining its status and migration routes, as well as the best times and places to encounter it.

A fistful of megas • In the first of a new series of first-hand accounts charting legendary spells in British and Irish birding, Richard Bonser casts his mind back to the rarity-filled weeks of autumn 2008, when a long list of monster finds saw twitchers scrambling to keep up with the season’s thrilling pace.

Booted and Sykes’s Warblers • Andy Stoddart examines a pair of similar-looking warblers from Asia that occur rarely in Britain and have a history of posing identification difficulties. Either species, and especially Sykes’s, would be a significant find, but clinching their ID requires decent views and prior knowledge of the criteria.

Atlantic outpost • Inishmore has emerged as one of Ireland’s most prolific spots for rarities over the past couple of decades, especially when it comes to transatlantic visitors. Dermot Breen introduces the island and its top birding sites.

The Green Big Year • Relying mainly on pedal-power and walking, Ponç Feliu embarked on a ‘non-motorised’ year-list attempt spanning Europe in 2024, with the target of seeing more than 400 species.

Shearwater SOS • The perilous state of Barolo Shearwater’s global population became apparent to Bart Vercruysse during a groundbreaking seabird project. Urgent action is required to save the species.

Steppes to heaven • When seeing Siberian Rubythroat, Taiga Flycatcher, Black-faced Bunting and Brown Shrike before breakfast is deemed a ‘quiet’ morning you know you’re in a place where birding dreams can become reality. Paul Baxter reports on a recent ringing trip to Mongolia.

Read Birdwatch the eco-friendlyway • Unlock more than 30 years of Birdwatch with a subscription to the Birdwatch Digital Archive

Tripods on a roll • Likely to be the most groundbreaking innovation in the history of tripod design and production, is Revolve Technology’s System series about to change the birding dynamic? Mike Alibone puts the world’s most compact tripod to the test.

Irish app released

Spying on wildlife

Rooster booster

No time to wind down • This month’s panel includes: Keith Betton,...