10,000 Birds

JANUARY 19, 2024

There’s also a much greater variety of species of deer living here now than than there were four or five hundred years ago, for along with our native Roe and Red Deer we also have large populations of Fallow, Sika, Reeves’s Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer. Reeves’s Muntjac , a highly successful invasive species in the UK.

Fur 199

Fur Deer Boars Estonia 199

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2024

Memorable encounters with Mammals: Part I Most birdwatchers enjoy seeing mammals, but the trouble with mammals is that they tend to be much more challenging to see than birds. I remember the guide on my first Kenyan birding safari remarking that “birding groups always see far more mammals than those who come just to see animals.

Fur 178

Fur Bulgaria Otters Estonia 178

10,000 Birds

APRIL 14, 2023

Either way, they are perhaps more central to our stories and lore than other birds, a familiar example, as Darlington reminds us, being Shakespeare’s Macbeth. An Englishwoman, she thought, originally, that she would stay within the British Isles, to see the five or six native species.

Barn Owls 113

Barn Owls Owls Serbia Finland 113

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2024

Most serious bird photographers dislike taking pictures of birds wearing rings (or what on the other side of the Atlantic you call bands). I can sympathise, as a shiny new ring, clamped to a bird’s leg, rarely enhances its portrait. The information I received didn’t indicate the age of the bird.

Lithuania 130

Lithuania Morocco Iceland Ireland 130

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2015

In reality I’ve returned from filming the second Champions of the Flyway Bird Race. Compared to the 135 participants of this, arguably the most grueling 24-hour birding competition in the world. A male Crowned Sandgrouse – just one of the 235 species seen during the race. Jonathan Meyrav. And I had it easy.

Cyprus 257

Cyprus illegal Birds 257

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 17, 2019

The Christmas Bird Count was the answer. The IWC census starts from mid-January following the logic that it is the period when the birds have reached their wintering grounds and are rather static, so the chance of double-counting the same flock is minimal. But it is so frustrating to pass the birds by without IDing them!

Geese 141

Geese Serbia Birds Estonia 141

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 16, 2020

The Ural Owl inhabits old and undisturbed boreal forests, in an unbroken belt from Sweden and Finland across Russia to Japan, and is rarely seen to the south, only here and there, in the Carpathians (Slovakia/Ukraine/Romania/eastern Serbia) and Dinaric Alps (Croatia/Bosnia/western Serbia). Absolutely thrilled!

Serbia 244

Serbia Owls Slovakia Bosnia 244

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2016

Though many people joke that the mosquito is the Alaskan state bird, in fact it is the much more pleasant Willow Ptarmigan. In 1955 – before Alaska was a state – the Territory’s leaders in charge of drafting a constitution allowed schoolchildren to choose what would eventually become the state bird.

Alaska 102

Alaska Finland Indiana Russia 102

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 15, 2012

Talking to Jan Södersved the editor of the Birdlife Finland magazine Linnut whilst we were both in Portugal in early October suggested that all of the owl species in Finland had had a very productive breeding season. The numbers we have wintering in Britain are certainly bearing that out.

Barn Owls 177

Barn Owls Finland Owls Portugal 177