It’s the end of January and time to start making preparations for this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch. This annual survey, organised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), has been running for 41 years and is now the world’s largest wildlife survey. To enable more people to
Continue readingIt’s a crisp, sunny day in mid-January and I’m watching the birds in my garden. It’s been relatively mild over the winter months so far and there is still plenty of natural food available. This is quite unusual for January when food is usually scarce. Fewer siskin, redpoll and brambling
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The evenings are really drawing in now and, as autumn and winter are my favourite birding seasons, I’m listening with longing for the sound of returning flocks of pink-footed geese flying over my house. Autumn is the time when our coastlines and wetlands begin to fill with flocks of wildfowl
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Hello birdwatchers Happy New Year! Traditionally, New Year’s Day is when birders go outdoors to get a good start to their year list. I’ve always like to have a lie in after celebrations the night before so I tend to start off my list with birds from my garden and
Continue readingWell, I said goodbye to my little house martin on the last day of July and it flew away, without looking back, towards an area full of feeding adult and juvenile house martins at Golden Acre Park. You can see a little video here. Thank you to the staff at The Parkway
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Now that the Leeds Birdfair is over I’m looking forward to enjoying the summer months although, as a birder, my July and August is spent watching the beginning of the outward migration, when birds begin to move away from their breeding grounds in the north. For a birder, autumn has
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Hello birdwatchers I hope you’ve been able to go outdoors to enjoy the last of the amazing autumn weather. The colours have been amazing and as it’s stayed dry for most of the autumn we’ve been able to enjoy golds, reds and russet browns on the trees and on the
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At the time ‘the general public’ are enjoying their summer holidays, birders are watching their local nature reserves with eager anticipation for the arrival of waders. July and August is the start of the autumn migration and every day is special when birds are on the move. Birds will move
Continue readingSunday May 7th saw the first bird-walk for the Friends of Lawnswood Cemetery. It was a bird song identification walk led by Linda Jenkinson of Start Birding. A group of about 25-30, seven of whom were “Friends”, the others more experienced bird watchers, had assembled in the car park by
Continue readingThanks to the development of the new Kirkstall railway station, I’ve been able to offer a new circular walk on my programme of events. You can book onto my tour of Bramley Falls Wood, Hawksworth Woods and Newlay Wood, which takes place on Tuesday 31st January, via the events page on
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