The Talk

It’s a damn fine issue of #NeotropicalBirding. If you ever go birding in South or Central America, or the Caribbean, you need to subscribe.

Good news.

🚨 For those with access to collections of bird specimens: we are looking for collaborators who can quickly measure bulbuls/greenbuls (Pycnonotidae) for a project on intraspecific trait variation. We need 100s specimens measured from common species in return for co-authorship. Anyone up for it? 🧪🌐🪶

I appear to have written a book in Spanish. Well, sort of. Aves de Espana is a translation of Birds of Spain, which was published in 2023. But it’ll do.

Bishopthorpe Parish Council want to sell a small wildlife oasis hosting rare wildflowers like Yellow Star-of-Bethlehem to a developer. This field belongs to the people of Bish who cherish its wildlife. Please sign this petition to stop them doing this. Thanks 😊 c.org/syGKBRcGBY

Just a few days to go until our next deadline. Apply at the link below. #ornithology

Snap, grackle and pop. Shameless urban filth in Hampshire with @pterodroma.bsky.social @stuartwhite73.bsky.social #UKBirding

The Great-tailed Grackle was a fun addition to today's Killdeer twitch with @jameslowenwild.bsky.social and @stuartwhite73.bsky.social wasnt at all bothered by passers by, but didn't like mopeds! #rarebirdsUK #ukbirding @birdguides.bsky.social @rarebirder.bsky.social

After 2h static on the M25 m, perhaps due to a deerkill accident, we watched the Ripley double-banded plover in the rain and mud, then stroked the Hythe grackle. Time now for a Kent-wintering bluetail… @pterodroma.bsky.social @stuartwhite73.bsky.social #ukbirding #filthytwitching

During the 1990s environmental damage was projected in the future to cause mass migration, food price increases, disease & extreme weather, among other things. We are living now in the beginning of that future. Taking action is vital for national security. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

garden yeartick. #aurora #just

We don't need to reintroduce large highly mobile waterbirds. If we create suitable space and habitat for them they will colonise naturally and are more likely to be successful #UKBirding 🪶🌍 an #Ornithology 🧵1/5

Utterly damning report from Office for Environmental Protection - the Govt’s not only missing its targets to protect wildlife in England, it’s also failing on *almost all* environmental measures - and in some cases actively destroying the natural world through its obsession with growth at all costs

There are people who say there's no such thing as the best seabird in the world. These are people who haven't seen Light-mantled Albatross. North of Elephant Island yesterday. #Birds #Albatross #SuperSeabirdSunday

I don't think I've had such a rich day of Norfolk #twitching for a decade. Between moonset and moonrise today, I crammed in Black-winged Kite, Ferruginous & Ring-necked Ducks, Eastern Black Redstart, Taiga Bean Goose and Hume's Warbler. That'll do me for a month... #UKBirding #NorfolkBirding

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