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 Note

Bonus digital content!

Sahel’s long-lost lark

Dove of Harmony Hill • Photographs of a garden visitor shared online from Co Antrim revealed a longoverdue addition to the Irish list.

Hidden in the reeds, written in the mud • A strange bird flushed from a reedbed stopped one Co Cork birder in his tracks. Luckily, quick work with the camera confirmed its identity as a mega.

Ollaberry owl causes a stir in Shetland • After a Tengmalm’s Owl on Mainland was kept quiet in January, a second occurrence in March was cause for celebration.

Stejneger’s suspicions confirmed • An intriguing scoter in Fife that had remained too far offshore finally came close enough to eliminate doubts as to its identity.

End-of-season specials • March’s birding highlights retained plenty of wintry goodies despite the arrival of the meteorological spring, as Josh Jones reports.

Koel of the wild • The Western Palearctic’s second Asian Koel in Kuwait led a varied and eventful March, with multiple national firsts and lingering rarities across Europe and North Africa. Ed Stubbs reports.

30 DAYS OF BIRDGUIDES FOR FREE!

When the north-east wind blows • Any spring day in the field is cause for celebration, but things really get going at our columnist’s patch when a chilly breeze picks up off the North Sea.

Ducking the crosshairs • New hunting restrictions are an overdue relief for declining waders and wildfowl, writes our columnist. Now shooters are gunning for self-regulation.

Reasons to be churr-ful • A recent survey has highlighted European Nightjar’s recovery in the UK, writes BTO Senior Research Ecologist, Greg Conway.

The spring that had it all • Thirty-six years on, Robin Chittenden revisits the legendary spring of 1990, when overshoots, mega finds and iconic rarities set birding pulses racing across Britain.

European Red-rumped Swallow • Spring flocks of hirundines are a spectacle in their own right, but a rarer visitor from southern Europe could be among them in the right conditions. Richard Bonser details how to increase your chances of picking out a ‘red-rump’.

End of the hemipode? • Brian McCloskey investigates the decline of the Western Palearctic’s only buttonquail, pondering the possible loss of this enigmatic bird.

Ears in the Merlin age: is AI eroding our fieldcraft? • Recent years have seen machine learning transform how we go birding. Readily available apps break down barriers for new birders, but how do they impact the learning process? Simon Breeze considers how the hobby goes forward in the age of AI.

Pirates of the Solway • The Solway Firth has long been famous for spring skua passage. Nick Franklin explores the history of this phenomenon and looks at why sightings have dried up in recent years.

The oscine revolution • A simple shift in our understanding of the avian ‘voicebox’ has shaped how birders and scientists interpret bird vocalisations, explains Mark Constantine in a preview of the new edition of The Sound Approach to Birding.

Sharp horizons • Compact and competitively priced, can the new Conquest Apia from ZEISS take pole position in the travelscope sector? Mike Alibone assesses its potential.

Coffee in the field

Binocular without boundaries • Opticron’s recently launched Europa duo sets out to impart the best possible viewing experience through a comfortably compact binocular. Mike Alibone looks at what’s on offer.

Subcontinent guide rebooted

Mad for it

Uplifting...