The Government has recently announced that land in England protected for nature will be quadrupled to 30% by the year 2030 as a consequence of 2022’s UN Biodiversity deal. Britain ...

IT’S AUTUMN AGAIN All our summer visitors are back in Africa and we are in that somewhat in-between period when summer visitors to Northern Europe are still wending their way ...

This is the first Bird Note that I have written since before Covid. The first lockdown was very enjoyable because you could walk around and see hardly any cars. In ...

INLAND MEGA RARITIES In Bird Note 11 I mentioned the Lammergeier, or Bearded Vulture, that spent several months last year in my home County of Derbyshire. It spent several weeks ...

February 14 to 21 was National Nest Box Week. This was an event initiated by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) in 1997. Over many years the natural habitat has ...

One of the most interesting bird books to appear in 2020 was called “Red 67.” The title refers to the 67 birds that are on the most “at risk” category ...

In my very first Bird Note I wrote about Spring migration when birds come from Africa and southern Europe to breed in the UK with many of them singing to ...

It has been much reported that during the Covid lockdown people have been finding nature and the reduction in traffic noise has allowed birdsong to be appreciated by many for ...

“They’ve been coming here for hundreds of years!” were amongst the first words said to me in my new home in Ufford in 2002. I’d moved into a new house ...

Re-introductions In one of my earlier Bird Notes, on Gravel Workings, I commented on the spread northwards from the south coast of Egrets. Little Egrets have been moving northwards for ...

In Bird Note 8 I focussed on the fate of the Turtle Dove and the threat to migrant birds of hunters in Southern Europe. The Turtle Dove I reported had ...

You will no doubt have seen that on Friday 26 April the RSPB released a charity song, “Let Nature Sing”, to highlight Britain’s declining bird numbers. It contains the songs ...

Britain’s tallest bird species, and the one with the biggest wingspan, is the Common Crane. In medieval times they were a common species and much treasured for the dining table ...

With the continuing decline in numbers of farmland birds much of the interest in birding comes from wetland birds such as waders and wildfowl and in this regard the Nene ...

In September I spent two weeks birdwatching in Peru. With its neighbour Colombia it is one of the two countries with the world’s biggest bird-list with over 1900 species. In ...

I’ve just spent two days at the annual Birdfair held at Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust’s reserve at Rutland Water. Amazingly it was the 30th such event and it has ...

In my note in June I rhapsodised about the influx of summer migrants. This year the stormy weather caused great disruption and it is widely thought that numbers of many ...

Last month I wrote about the joys of seeing summer migrants from Africa, the most iconic being the Cuckoo with its distinctive call. Over the last 30 years or so, ...

For bird-watchers spring and autumn migrations are the most exciting times of the year. In late Winter- early Spring those birds that came to spend the winter in the UK ...