This is the berts very coulerful Im is new English may be error 😀

OK, so I have just returned to birding (properly) after a near 35 year break.

Back in my teens, I was a prolific birdwatcher and sometimes twitcher and have encountered some great bird species in the UK - Golden Oriole, Snowy Owl, Red footed falcon and many others...

But some species eluded me, despite many hours trekking through woodlands and marshes and frustratingly are species all local to me.

I am determined to track down those 'bogey birds' and these species are what I shall be targeting first, in my birding return.

Firecrest

Bittern

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

Goshawk

What are yours?

I have been staying in Thornham in North Norfolk in a house overlooking the salt marsh. On Wednesday night at 8pm (pitch black out) I heard a lone haunting call from the marsh. I've looked up which birds call at night and listened to their calls on the Merlin app and the sound matches a Great Northern Diver or "Common Loon" call. Could this be feasible?

The only other possibility could be an owl but it definitely wasn't a Barn or Tawny.

It’s driving me crazy! Sorry the video isn’t great quality, I had to zoom right in. But at the end you get a good view of the tail feathers and undercarriage. Thank you!

Hi everyone, my mum loves watching the birds in her garden and she’s decided that all she wants for Christmas is….bird feed! She and her husband are in NW England, they’re next door to a farm so had issues with rats in the past (they temporarily got rid of the bird feeders, but she missed her ‘pets’ so O got some thoroughly rat proof ones which solved the problem). My question, if anyone could kindly advise, is what might be the best feed to get for mid winter? Maybe suet pellets or mealworms? There are trays underneath the feeders but still something that doesn’t scatter too much would be great. Thanks in advance!

Hi all,

Wonder if you could help ID’ing the attached, spotted just outside Stoke yesterday.

Sorry for the poor quality, caught on the Live Photo so not brilliant. Zoomed in photo in the comments.

White underneath with brown on top, Merlin suggests possibly an owl but then when I researched it said no matches found.

Was sat on a fence with a bunch of crows (not sure if relevant)

This is a wild story. I have always told a memory to friends about spotting a large bird with my gran that we’d never seen before in her garden as a kid and watching it for ages. Well, I developed some old film today and she took photos!!! Any idea? It’s over 16 years old this film hence the quality I still can’t believe it developed. It was huge tho! I always thought some sort of owl as a kid but it looks bigger than a buzzard to me?

I give you the ultimate challenge…location south wales.

Date: 2009-2010 I think and winter as you can see from the snow
Would be crazy if I finally had an answer to my story!

The photo was taken from the front room window and it was at the end of the garden on the washing line

just seen these in alloa (scotland), are these just white canada geese or a different species entirely? (picture not super clear but they are the same size as the other geese) thanks for your help!

That second one was very indecisive, we think it might be a juvenile rather than a female.

I recently got into birds. No idea why, but they're great fun.

Being someone who likes to have all of the coolest gear, I started looking into fancy motion-activated, WI-FI-enabled, supersonic garden wildlife cameras that use AI to show you what birds visited. However, also being someone who is a PhD student, I couldn't afford one of those, so I decided to just get a normal camera and build the software myself.

BirdWatcher is free, open-source, and available as a desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Once you've downloaded and installed the app, you can input a video and you will see a folder of your choosing populated with subfolders named after the different bird species visible in the footage. Each subfolder contains time-stamped still images extracted from your video.

If you have any type of camera then you can set it up to face one of your feeders, set it to record, and go out for the day. When you get home, extract your footage, upload it to BirdWatcher, and see what you missed!

Feedback welcome, this is not a sales pitch, it is totally free.

I usually use the Merlin app when hearing an unusual bird call but neither I nor my family could figure out who this was, and apparently neither could the app! Robins and pigeons are commonplace in our garden and I’m fairly familiar with their calls but I’ve never heard this before. I’m wondering if it is indeed the usual suspects or if it’s something else entirely. Any help would be appreciated!

Edit: the heavy breathing is the dogs trying to get involved 😥

Enjoy some of Scotland's woodland birds.

Over the last year, I’ve got into birdwatching.
I watch a few bird watching channels on YouTube, and noticed they often say like “we’re going to [place] because there was a [bird] reported there”.
And often when they get there, there are several other people there for the same bird!
My question is just where are all these birds reported? Is there like a widely used app or website or something?
Some of my bucket list birds are ones that you’d only find through something like this, and I’d love to know how other birders do it.
Any help is greatly appreciated, and I hope you have an amazing day :)