Outstanding idea. Good pubs too

Trying to get my head round the 2026 orchid season having started already…

Sheringham's take on a Christmas Robin interrupted today's festive preparations. #EasternBlackRedstart #NorfolkBirding #UKBirding

It can be hard to focus on work sometimes…

The sparkling new edition of Bradt's Arctic guidebook may not have my name on the front cover but I updated it thoroughly, and am honoured to be associated with the late Tony Soper and artist Dan Powell. First copies in to @bradtguides.bsky.social today - and in the shops next month.

Couple of #aurora teasers over Norwich tonight - but a garden tick, at l(e)ast.

Sounds like a lot. Except £500M over two decades is a measly £25M a year, further eroded by inflation- which at the current 4% means the year 20 value is equivalent to around half of year 1’s.

It’s Book Friday! Here are 22 travel book ideas from members of the British Guild of Travel Writers. Includes the two books I’ve had out this year… bgtw.org/travel-book-...

Seven years since I was in the Colombian Andes - or, indeed, the Andes at all.

Well, that comment didn’t have staying power. what a day’s cricket. #Ashes2025

They say the first morning sets the tone. This risks being a very loooong #Ashes series. (Albeit with one with very short matchss.)

First-winter Little Gull an unexpected find today on agricultural fields near Methwold, Norfolk. #ukbirding

Great to see that the National Estate for Nature Group - whose members own c.10% of England - have agreed to "publish estate management plans by April 2026", setting out how each of them are contributing to 30x30 & Environment Act targets. Thread 1/ defraenvironment.blog.gov.uk/2025/11/18/l...

With thanks to @lowestoftlizards.bsky.social @perilsofbirding.bsky.social for inspiration& information, I speedbirded 10 minisites in Gorleston,Caister,Gt Yarmouth today. Migrants at all sites, but Meadow Park the best (Pallas’s!). Totals: 1 Woodcock, 5 Firecrest, Willow Warbler, 18 Chiff #ukbirding

Couldn’t match Mike’s Phyllosc megadiversity at Holkham yesterday, but did chance upon a Pallas’s Warbler on a migrant-rich Stiffkey Binks - a place I like but keep forgetting to go to. A couple of Glossy Ibis encounters & two Firecrest were otherwise the best in the Stiffkey-Warham area #UKBirding

Went out to find Hume's Warbler today (well, & Black-faced Bunting)... and did (well, not the BFB). Burnham Overy Dunes, Norfolk. Chuffed to bits. Awful record photo but some decent tape. A bird I'd wanted to find since mates reid'd one in 1989! #UKBirding soundcloud.com/james-lowen-...

Delighted to have today received a copy of the British Guild of Travel Writers book, Around the World in 65 Years. I have a story in there about a madcap expedition in the sultry Chaco of Argentina.

Does anyone *recognise* this bird call soundcloud.com/james-lowen-... please? From a Norfolk crop field after dark. Ideal would be the link to an identical XC/ML cut, please. Bird called twice; only taped the 2nd time. Ideas so far inc Stone-curlew, Curlew, Whimbrel, Barn owl, Tawny Owl. #UKBirding

My Beyond Birdwatching column for November (in Bird Watching magazine) wonders whether Cypress Carpet, a recent colonist, might 'grace your garden moth trap this year?' I was actually hoping that it might arrive new for OUR garden... and so it did, albeit late last month rather than this! #teammoth

Overshooting 1.5°C wasn't 'inevitable.' We've been pushed by fossil fuel giants & governments that pander to them. Every delay, every oil field, every broken promise made this crisis worse. Keir Starmer, will you promise to leave Rosebank undeveloped? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This might also explain the slow and steady decline of common insects. I am sure they cannot avoid these pesticides either and low levels could disrupt behaviour or reduce survival rates www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Most pleased with this nfg Cypress Carpet in Norwich. Not unexpected, given the surge in #Norfolkmoths records but last night’s front felt like it might confer one. And it did. Also Silver Y (rare this year) and Diamondback, hinting at #migrantmothuk arrivals. #teammoth #muchadoaboutmothing

The boys are back in town. Oddly, they are all called Merv. #teammoth #norfolkmoths #merveilledujour #muchadoaboutmothing

F@k, yeah! Red-flanked Bluetail, Wells Woods, right now. made me fall to the floor, knees too week

Tooling up for another day in the Shetland iris beds and burns, with the expected highlight being Redpoll. @dbradnum.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social @beardybirder.bsky.social

We don’t seem to be in a rush to get outside and find birds today. @dbradnum.bsky.social @beardybirder.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social #Shetland

Yeah, I’ll have some of that.

Surely this piece of grassy detritus on the cottage window is a good omen for today? #ukbirding

Spotted from 200m away!

Rustic bunting cannonballing around Urafirth (Mainland, Shetland) this evening. Not otherwise seen since 3rd? @beardybirder.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social @dbradnum.bsky.social

searching for shetland’s pot of gold on muckle roe… @dbradnum.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social @beardybirder.bsky.social Two ybw so far and a couple of migrant moths…

Collared dove, Asta, Shetland. #ukbirding @dbradnum.bsky.social @beardybirder.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social

And breathe. After 2.5h soggy dipping yet hoping, male Siberian thrush at Asta, Shetland. @dbradnum.bsky.social @beardybirder.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social #ukbirding

Good marine wildlife-watching last night from the Aberdeen-Lerwick ferry, inc 2 white-beaked dolphins, 2 Leach’s petrel, half-a-dozen Euro stormies & a dozen Sooties. @beardybirder.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social @dbradnum.bsky.social

We got blown off course a bit en route to Shetland. #YoungTurk #ukbirding @beardybirder.bsky.social @moorebirdsbybike.bsky.social @dbradnum.bsky.social

The mantidfly Mantissa syriaca, photographed in Iberia during the summer. Look into my eyes...

One day. One day.

We've been engaging farmers with moth monitoring from the Chilterns to Pembrokeshire. Using portable bucket traps and an AI based app - farmers love uncovering hidden biodiversity! Read my blog here: www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-med... @ukceh.bsky.social @mjopocock.bsky.social #mothsmatter #TeamMoth

An astonishing 20 Clancy’s Rustic in last night’s Norwich garden moth trap, double the previous record set earlier this month (which was remarkable enough to merit a tweet). Here are some of them. #NorfolkMoths

Lesser Grey Shrike, Winterton Dunes, Norfolk. Friendly. #UKbirding #NorfolkBirding

Having had a poor year of Norwich garden mothing & despite being able to run 1 trap (rather than the previous night’s 4!), the lonely little synergetic contained a hidden but particulary pleasing Migrant Sable (Diasemiopsis ramburialis). Just 1 Norfolk record prior to 2025 (but 3 this week!)

And another one last night, alongside a garden record 12 Clancy’s Rustic (previous best 3!), Dark Sword-grass and 2 Lunar Yellow Underwing

In our garden, at least, #mothing is about the browns of decaying leaves. So to see an unseasonably late, vibrant-green Scarce Silver-lines this morning was a treat. Especially as the best migrant - on what I was hoping would be a decent night - was Dark Sword-grass. #teammoth #MuchAdoAboutMothing

And they do great stuff. I wrote about rhe work a few years ago for The Countryman magazine - and things seem to have kept on improving since then. Well done, Carl et al.!

The Oriental Bird Club today announced me as the new editor of Birding Asia magazine. Alex Berryman & I will double up on the Dec issue, then I take it forward from 2026. Keen to hear from birders w/stories to tell, sites to showcase etc & #TravelPRs w/new ecotourist offerings in Asia.

Properm marvel, this

Big Cliff, little Old Lady. Norwich, this morn, to start the week. #teammoth #mothing #NorfolkMoths #MuchAdoAboutMothing

A Star-wort caterpillar on sea aster was one of the highlights of our Suffolk Saturday.

Particularly proud of this photo. Nice of the black-winged kite to return to its first twitchable location at a time when I am in the country! #gripback #ukbirding