Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i Birdwatch

WHAT are your targets this May? For me, this is always a month in which I hope to see Calidris sandpipers in my local area (see Birdwatch 359: 31-35). Whether a brick-red Sanderling or a black-bellied Dunlin, these birds are exciting to find and provide a little taster of the Arctic close to home. Perhaps the calidrid most synonymous with May is Temminck’s Stint, for this is by far the best month in which to see one in Britain. I was lucky to have sightings of two different birds in local flooded fields last year, although neither was close and Simon Papps’s opening passage in his profile of the species (pages 22-25) felt very relatable. Hoopoe feels like it might well be on the cards locally this spring as well,…

EGYPTIAN Vulture has been added to Category A of the British list, following an announcement by the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC). The bird behind the decision was the adult that was recorded at various locations in 2021. First seen in north Lincolnshire on 13 May, it was subsequently witnessed by multiple observers in the Isles of Scilly on 14 June. The vulture then moved to Ireland, where it was initially seen in Co Donegal on 14-15 July and later twitchable in Co Roscommon between February and May 2022. Indeed, the BOURC’s move came 14 months after the Irish Rare Birds Committee (IRBC) accepted Egyptian Vulture onto Category A of the Irish list. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the BOURC has referenced the Egyptian Vulture videoed in Cornwall on 22 May 2022…

Until relatively recently I’d always been a ‘fair-weather’ seawatcher, saving myself only for the most perfect conditions or a carefully selected pelagic on foreign oceans that offered a guaranteed return. That misapprehension I held dear, even after moving to the south coast. I believed seawatching was second best to the more ‘noble’ pursuit of searching diligently through the bushes in spring, trying to seek out an anticipated micro fall of spring migrants or a lone rarity. Even as I passed my 40th birthday, the lightbulb still hadn’t illuminated in my mind that a remedy to a lacklustre spring morning on land could be staring out to sea with a ‘scope. A eureka moment It was the spring of 2022, with its persistent south-easterly airflow, that revealed how wrong I was.…

This month’s expert panel includes: Mike Alibone, Keith Betton, David Callahan and Josh Jones Kite APC 60 ED Stabilized Telescope WITH the refreshingly modern design and the latest technology both employed in its images-tabilised binoculars, Kite Optics is currently on a roll. So much so that the company has quickened its pace and moved up to the next level by producing the world’s first image-stabilised telescope. This may raise some questions. Why do we need image stabilisation in a telescope? What are the benefits? In what circumstances does it demonstrate a clear advantage over a conventional telescope? In an attempt to answer these questions, I managed to get my hands on the product before it hit the market en masse – and I wasn’t disappointed. I must admit to being an…

SUPPORT for the bird photographer is vitally important. I’m not talking about therapy for sufferers of ‘gear-acquisition syndrome’, rather I’m referring to stability for your equipment: the choice of tripod, monopod or handheld. The obvious and fundamental trade-off here is simple: stability versus mobility. A tripod will give you optimum stability, but you’ll be more mobile and able to react quickly if shooting handheld. But there are myriad factors which go into the decision. The obvious one is of course weight. If you’re comfortable handholding your equipment for as long as you need, then there’s no need to drag a tripod or monopod along. However, if you’re operating with a large and heavy lens such as a 500 mm f/4, or just don’t have a very steady hand, you’ll want…

One of the all-time great twitches commenced at dawn on 2 June 2003, when hundreds of hopeful birders gathered in the car park at South Stack RSPB, Anglesey. Their target was Britain’s first Black Lark, which had been found the previous day. Local bird-finding legend Ken Croft had been in the right place at the right time to relocate the lark in the early evening, but by the point the ID had been confirmed and news put out, it was too late for all but those within a couple of hours of Holyhead to get there before nightfall. Unsurprisingly, then, a major twitch was to unfold on 2nd. Happily, the bird was still present and gave stunning views throughout the day. In fact, the lark went on to linger for…

Sitting in a hide at a nature reserve looking for scarce wildfowl among the naturalised Egyptian Geese, Canada Geese and Red-crested Pochards, my attention strayed to the chart on the wall showing the regular local species. One – another feral species – stood out as unlikely: Ruddy Duck. This characterful North American invasive is hardly talked about now. BirdGuides carries few reports and its rare presence is often concealed by an omertà usually kept for rare species at inaccessible private sites. However, until the mid-2000s, Ruddy Duck was ubiquitous at many well-known wetlands. Native to North America, Ruddy Duck was first noted in the wild in Britain in 1952 after being imported by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in 1948 (although there were a few in private collections before World…

In early September 2023, Dante Shepherd and I moved to Bangor in North Wales for work. We have both been lucky enough to spend time living and birding on the Scottish islands of North Ronaldsay and Unst, and at the Danish migration hot-spot of Skagen, so finding a productive patch on the UK mainland’s west coast seemed a daunting prospect at first. A new patch We explored several sites close to our new home, but Holyhead captivated us the most. We began birding the area more regularly from mid-September, just as that autumn’s extraordinary influx of American passerines began. We were both yet to start our new jobs and were out every day during this famous two-week period, but to no avail. There were very few common migrants, and our…

MAY is one of the most exciting months of the birding calendar in the UK. As well as a list of mouthwatering passage possibilities, all of our breeding migrants will arrive during the month if they haven’t already, and there’ll be plenty of interesting behaviour to observe and photograph during the subsequent scramble to attract a mate and breed. One of my favourites is the smart and charismatic Sedge Warbler. The manic song is often delivered from prominent positions such as reed stems and bushes, providing excellent photographic opportunities. While they will often sing throughout the day during May, activity is particularly concentrated early in the morning – which is the perfect time to photograph them. Not only will you have gorgeous golden light on sunny days, but the wind…

I love birding during May – special days of migration at this time of year can be among the best. The mixture of common migrants is exciting and spring has the wonderful dawn chorus. On my patch, I love listening to warblers, Common Cuckoo and various other species. It’s also a fine month for monitoring breeding birds; for example, recently I have confirmed the nesting of Northern Shoveler here. Spring seawatching is something I adore. Some days have enough movement of skuas, waders and terns to keep it interesting for many hours. Often the seabirds are fairly distant, but one highlight that stands out for me was my first patch Pomarine Skuas in early May 2016, which flew low over the end of Rainbow Bar – close enough to enjoy…

Treebasker Reading Kit Day’s Photo Target of Eurasian Treecreeper in the March issue (Birdwatch 393: 62) brought back the memory of a warm sunny day in May 2018 while my wife and I were at our local patch of Langford Lakes, Wiltshire. We were walking along the central track through the reserve where treecreepers are regularly seen feeding on insects on the few alder trees interposed between the more numerous willows. Suddenly, while walking past a moss-covered willow, my wife spotted a treecreeper basking in the sunshine which immediately flew back into the undergrowth. We waited for about five minutes and were pleased to see the bird move around the tree trunk and subsequently settle down to continue its basking. While waiting I prepared the settings on my camera to…

Picture the scene. It’s a warm day in mid-May at the famous east-coast hot-spot of Minsmere in Suffolk. Raucous calls of breeding gulls and Avocets fill the air. There’s some migrant wader activity on The Scrape, with a pristine charcoal-coloured Spotted Redshank, a handful of Greenshank, a scattering of tortoiseshell-plumaged Ruddy Turnstones hustling for a snack, and a group of peachy-coloured Red Knot resting up. All welcome sights. A little further back on a rushy island, however, there is potentially something else to pique the interest. There’s a definite small shape nestled in among the vegetation. Is it even a bird, though? Could it be a stone or a clod of earth? Or even a remnant of Konik pony poo?! I’m sure it just moved then – or was that…

Common Nightingale is a scarce and declining summer visitor to south-east England and is rare elsewhere in Britain, while Thrush Nightingale is a rarity anywhere in the country. Many of us are therefore not particularly familiar with either species – a situation which can cause significant identification problems with birds encountered as migrants. Distribution The nominate subspecies of Common Nightingale has a large breeding range, extending from Iberia and Morocco in the west through central and southern Europe to western Turkey. Favouring dense scrub and thickets, it is most common in southern Europe in regions bordering the Mediterranean, where its population appears stable. Its range does not extend far to the north, however, and it does not breed in Scandinavia. There are two other subspecies, collectively known as ‘Eastern Nightingale’.…

It’s flying in now, it’s flying in now” came the manic cries from an assorted group of visiting birders, tour guides and local photographers, all packed onto a pebbly beach overlooking the Jishui River estuary on the southwest coast of Taiwan. “It’s going to land … there it is!” was the follow-up shout, before the now ecstatic congregation fist-pumped the air, some even sharing hugs and handshakes. There was good reason for the bedlam. One of the rarest birds in the world, a species thought extinct until as recently as 2000, had just alighted on a fishing post: a Chinese Crested Tern. This extraordinary species is occasionally seen during early spring in Taiwan as it passes through en route to its few known breeding islets in the Taiwan Strait. Critically…

This month’s panel includes: Keith Betton, Kit Day, Chris Harbard, Matt Phelps and Amy Robjohns MAY is such a wonderfully vibrant month. Not only are all the migrant breeding birds back from their winter holidays and settling down to nest, but many resident species will also already be fledging young by this point in the year. As such, you might find that time spent in your garden in May is soundtracked by the constant cheeping of young Eurasian Wrens, European Robins and Blue Tits, among others. I’ve said it before in this column, but from a maintenance perspective there is a tendency to feel like lots needs to be done in the garden at this lively time of year when, in fact, one of the most useful things you can…

BIRDS which have bright colours on show are usually trying to impress a mate and while these colours appear a certain way to us, they often look totally different to their target audience. Birds are able to see wavelengths that we cannot, including ultraviolet (UV), and research into bio fluorescence in birds indicates that it may have a role which we have only just started to understand. Bio fluorescence happens when UV light is absorbed and then emitted at a lower frequency and it can be found in the feathers, skin and beaks of many birds including auks, penguins, owls, nightjars, bustards, parrots and (most recently discovered) birds-of-paradise. In some of these it is clearly linked to courtship displays. The colourful horny sheath of a Puffin’s beak is grown for…