Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i Birdwatch

AS things stand, it feels like I am the only person in Europe not to have seen a Spectacled Eider. I have to say, while I thought this species might one day prove twitchable for WP listers, I expected it to be at a remote northern outpost such as Varangerfjord, where it would be seen only by an intrepid few. But there we are, I was wrong – instead it’s floating around in the Dutch Wadden Sea only a few hundred kilometres to the east of Norfolk. While I rarely twitch these days, the occurrence of vagrants such as this still delivers me that shot of adrenaline. How can it not? It’s one extraordinary bird. But, increasingly in my old(er) age, I find myself bemused and unsettled. Perhaps there’s an…

There can be few birders who have not at some point kept a list. Bird listing involves documenting the species you encounter, whether within a specific timeframe or in a particular location. This activity can range from creating a simple garden list to maintaining an extensive UK life list – a lifelong record of all bird species observed. For those who prefer a more localised approach, county listing offers a rewarding alternative. It reduces travel time, allowing for greater exploration of your local area, and brings the added satisfaction of potentially discovering a notable bird close to home. I have lived in Sussex for more than 60 years and have been passionate about birds for as long as I can remember. Both of my parents were avid birders, so from…

One bird for which it is becoming less appropriate to have the prefix ‘Common’ in its name, at least from a UK perspective, is Common Pochard. This species, once a numerous and widespread winter visitor to UK wetlands, is now a scarcity in many counties and, reflecting the vivid tones of the male’s head and eye, has been Red Listed on the UK’s Birds of Conservation Concern (BoCC) list. Not only are numbers decreasing in the UK, but a large and rapid decline in abundance across its migratory range has resulted in the species being classified as Vulnerable in 2015 by the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN) and it is now considered globally threatened. Perhaps the most colourful and striking member of the UK’s regularly occurring diving-duck species, Common…

THIS species can be very tricky to photograph and is therefore a real challenge as my target bird this month. March is a great time to photograph treecreepers as they become more vocal and are thus easier to locate, while the foliage is still sparse enough that it doesn’t cause too much of an obstruction. While most small woodland birds move from branch to branch, treecreepers have a habit of shuffling around the wrong side of a tree trunk, scooting upwards a few metres and then reappearing in a completely unphotographable place. As is so often the case, patience is key. Treecreepers will sometimes feed close to the base of a tree and can spend a while rootling in the bark, giving you a chance to approach. Their jerky movements…

Winter is the season for mega birds in unexpected places, such as unsuspecting tracts of the countryside or even suburban gardens. The rarest finds at this season have often generated some of the biggest twitches to take place on British shores, with the birds often staying a long while, proving fairly accessible and occurring at a time when birding is otherwise relatively quiet nationally. Such was the case for the Oriental Turtle Dove in gardens at Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, in winter 2010-11. Originally seen and photographed by homeowner John Dunleavy in mid-December, news didn’t come to light until images of the bird reached the BTO in late January. It was only a fortnight later, on 12 February – almost two months on from the original sightings – that the dove…

NEWS of a pale-morph Booted Eagle near Marazion, Cornwall, on 13 January had birders’ eyebrows raised. Evidently the bird last seen on 19 October 2024 never actually left and had been quietly lurking in the South-West ever since. In contrast to its autumn showing, the bird seemed settled into a routine and gave itself up to allcomers over the following weeks. This means that Booted Eagle has been well and truly unblocked after dozens also connected with the dark morph in the Chilterns just weeks previously (see Birdwatch 391: 9). It seems likely that the latter bird is also still at large somewhere in England, perhaps not even that far from where it was observed in late autumn. It is difficult to ignore the obvious parallels between this bird and…

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WINNER Winner: Red-footed Falcon by Joe Downing. Settings: 1/3200 at f9, ISO 3200. The results are in and we’re thrilled to announce the winners of the annual Photo of the Year competition (POTY), which was running in 2024 for its 19th year. As is always the case, the standard of this year’s POTY shortlist was outstanding. From the 52 BirdGuides Photo of the Week winners of 2024, a shortlist of 10 was independently nominated by each member of the Birdwatch and BirdGuides editorial team. Then, these top 10s were aggregated using a points system to assemble the final shortlist. This was then put to a public vote on the BirdGuides website, with thousands of you choosing your favourites. This year, birds of prey have dominated the winning slots, with the…

Birders often say that every rarity comes round again. But some rarities transcend even mega status, leaving us waiting desperately – and indefinitely – for another to be found. Not only is Wallcreeper in this rarefied group – this year, we’ve been waiting for 40 laps of the sun – but its allure is heightened further still by its sheer uniqueness. It is the sole member of the family Tichodromidae, but you don’t need to know the first thing about taxonomy to realise there is nothing like this butterfly-winged inhabitant of sheer rock faces. Navigating its unforgiving habitat with slow, considered movements and flying on huge, crimson-splashed wings, Wallcreeper is enigmatic even in its home mountain ranges. It is a headline act on birding trips which visit high elevation parts…

When bird ringing commenced in Britain and Ireland, all the way back in 1909, its primary aim was to reveal the mysteries of where our summer migrants wintered, where our winter visitors bred and whether the same individuals returned to the same breeding sites each year. Historically, the only evidence available to answer these questions was human observation, which inevitably led to some ‘interesting’ conclusions. Aristotle, living in Greece, only observed European Robins in Greece in winter and Common Redstarts in the summer, so surmised that they were one species in different plumages. And picture that iconic scene of a late summer evening – Swallows are circling above a lake and then, in an instant, they all drop into the reeds and disappear. The next morning they’re gone, with not…

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In October 2005 I visited Corvo alone and, over a period of nearly three weeks, discovered 68 individual American vagrants of 26 species including Hooded and Black-throated Blue Warblers, Mourning Dove, flocks of Chimney Swifts and Indigo Buntings, White-crowned Sparrow and the first Western Palearctic (WP) record of White-eyed Vireo (Birdwatch 172: 37-40). I had set out with the hope of finding one or two American vagrants but came home having discovered what felt like a lifetime’s worth. In doing so I had also found the premier site in the WP for those much-coveted American vagrants. When I got home, I was chased by birding publications for the story and photos of my discovery – that year it felt like I had won first place in birding. Over the following…

The occurrence of a juvenile goshawk on Corvo, Azores, in October 2024 has sparked renewed interest regarding the identification of American Goshawk in a Western Palearctic (WP) context. American Goshawk was historically treated as a species in its own right but was lumped with Eurasian Goshawk around 1931, a treatment that was maintained until 2023 when the two taxa were split again based on studies acknowledging deep genetic divergence along with morphological and vocal differences. American Goshawk is composed of three subspecies, of which only the nominate atricapillus is likely to occur in the WP. Currently, seven subspecies of Eurasian Goshawk are recognised, with the nominate subspecies occupying the bulk of Europe, while buteoides is found from Scandinavia and across Russia to the Lena River. This article focuses on the…

REVIEW German Precision Optics Passion ED 8x42 Binocular LOCATED just outside Munich, German Precision Optics GmbH – conveniently shortened to ‘GPO’ – is perhaps not a brand that many birders will be familiar with, yet it’s been up and running since 2015. The company, founded by highly experienced former managers and specialists from well-known names in the optics industry, was set up with the objective of developing and offering premium-quality optics at a highly competitive price-to-performance ratio. While key areas of the business, from research and development through design and construction to logistics, are located in Germany, the final assembly of the products is done at the company’s international production network in Asia, including China, Japan and the Philippines. The Passion ED range sits between the brand’s entry-level SD and…

YOU’RE back home after a productive day’s photography, having nailed the shots of a bird you’ve been targeting for weeks. You’ve been through your images and selected your favourites, but there’s still one vitally important step remaining: post-processing. If you shoot in JPEG format you can get started right away. JPEG files will open in any image-processing software (such as Adobe Photoshop) without having to do anything else. However, if you shoot in your camera’s RAW format, which I would strongly recommend that you do, you have a huge amount of scope for adjusting your image before you get to work with the final tweaks. This is called RAW conversion or RAW processing. Any in-camera adjustments you make to the appearance of your RAW images (such as picture style, sharpening…

FOR patchbirders, March is usually an interesting month that can be quite diverse and dynamic if the weather conditions are suitable. If we experience mild conditions and southerly winds, things start to feel increasingly spring-like and, for me, here on the Hampshire coast, I can usually expect the first arrivals of migrants such as Northern Wheatear, Garganey and hirundines. Willow Warbler is less guaranteed in March but nonetheless regular, while I have had singing Sedge Warbler as early as 22 March in recent years. Of course, Blackcap and Common Chiffchaff will be increasingly prominent in the second half of the month. This is a good time for earlymoving shorebirds. In previous years, March has been good for patch records of Ruff, although I drew a blank on this species in…