Welcome to The Bird Guides Podcast with me, Josh Jones.
And me, David Campbell
How's things, David?
You all right?
Yeah, really well.
Been enjoying a bit more migration the last few days.
Don't know if it's been busier around your local area
Pretty steady really.
I think it was a pretty quiet week, but there was a bit of weather
over the weekend which seemed to get things going a little bit.
But still fairly quiet my end.
Why what, what have you been seeing?
Well I've had a few passerines starting to move through.
So in the last week I've had a grasshopper warbler, that was the most satisfying.
Kicked one up from just inadvertently from the edge of a field, it
showed beautifully in the brambles.
Um, I've had redstart, a few willow warblers, a flyover siskin, house
martins and swifts on the move.
And at my local wetlands has been a pair of ruddy shelducks, a peck sand's
dropped in, wood sand, that kind of thing.
So it's been… Yeah, yeah, not my find unfortunately, but,
Oh, okay.
and not even a patch tick, but still rather nice.
Yeah.
nice, I'd say
Yeah.
And little ringed plovers have got late broods, some really cute
little chicks I've been looking at.
So yeah, it's been, been pretty busy.
And it's not even August
Exactly.
Yeah, it really does begin in the latter end of July, doesn't it?
All this all this stuff
It's amazing.
I actually have had a tick since we last spoke, can you believe?
Well, a, a Baston tick.
know a full fat tick, David.
What?
Oh, Ephraim?
Yeah, I have.
Yeah.
It's not a bird.
It's a dragonfly.
Southern migrant hawker.
Oh, wow, that was new for you, was it?
Wow
it was.
Yeah, Yeah.
We, We uh, haven't profited from the recent expansion until this year, but
just seems like this is the year for them.
It seems like a big year the country and yeah, several sites all of a
sudden seem to have become occupied by them this summer around here.
There's quite a few sites around Peterborough that have had them, so I went
out looking at likely looking spots during the warmth, at the end of last week.
And yeah the squacco heron spot in Crowland
Oh yeah
we had the squacco earlier this summer.
little reedy pond quite sheltered and a bit of a sun trap.
And yeah, pretty much instantly had one hawking up and down
there, so that was really nice.
And yeah, it seems like seems like a good year for dragonflies
Yeah, well, we were enjoying uh, Leicester and Peru when we were up
visiting you last time, so it's, it's been pretty busy up there
yeah, they seem to be they seem to be well established here now.
But anyway, just the two of us today.
Ian is away.
He's on holiday in Sweden.
I suspect he's likely watching the first migrant pied flycatchers, probably Caspian
terns flying overhead and enjoying a nice cold beer in the Swedish summer sunshine.
so just the two of us here
Yeah, I'm rather envious of Ian.
I, I often go to Finland in July, but I've skipped it this time.
So yeah, wish I could be out in Fennoscandia along with him.
But yeah, I hope he's having a good time
Yeah, and we're, we're starting today's pod with a little bit of sad news which
has come out this morning while we were prepping to record, and that's that Bill
Oddie has passed away at the age of 85.
Bill is, of course, an absolute icon of British birding, and many
would say perhaps the most famous British bird watcher of all time.
Certainly I think a lot of people would say that, although it was
something that seemed to make him a little bit uncomfortable
when it was presented as such.
He was a modest and quite shy chap.
But an absolute icon of the scene.
Yeah, I mean, he was just a, a legend.
He was a significant part of why I got into birding, as I'm sure
is the case for many, many people.
I remember meeting him at the Bird Fair.
I only met him once.
I know when you were editor of the magazine, you, you
spoke to him quite a lot.
But I only had the pleasure of meeting him once, and he signed
a hat for me at Bird Fair.
And I always remembered that fondly.
And yeah, I, I just really admired how he was always very outspoken for wildlife.
He didn't really mince his words.
He didn't hesitate.
He said what needed to be said about conservation
Yeah, definitely.
A huge character that, that there is no doubt.
And I think it's fair to say probably that he did more to popularize birding than
anyone during the '90s and early 2000.
made bird- birding mainstream in many respects.
Primetime BBC television shows, Birding with Bill Oddie, and then Bill
Oddie Goes Wild after that as well.
I, I remember I was very much of a, an impressionable age back then, and
I think it's fair to say that Bill was definitely a big part in inspiring me
and giving the, me the bug for birding.
Not just birding really, for all wildlife.
He did make it fun.
He did make it seem fun, which it
Absolutely.
And I always remember that one episode in Bill Oddie Goes Wild.
Do you remember when he was running around on that Dorset heath
Oh, for handkerchiefs?
Yeah
trying to a- attract a nightjar in.
That has really like permeated into popular culture.
I think a lot of people who aren't even birders know that if you mention
nightjars, they'll say, "Oh, you're waving your hankies around like Bill Oddie."
Have you ever done that?
I've tried it in the past.
I've not personally had a huge amount of success with it, but I
know people who, who swear by it as a method of getting good views.
No I remember doing it at Dersingham Bog at work there
I did it.
Oh, nice
years ago when I was a teenager.
Yeah.
got Bill to thank for that.
Back when I was a, a kiddie birder and I, you know, idolized Bill
initially you know, 'cause he was the first famous birder I, I knew of.
I somehow got ahold of an old DVD collection of The Goodies and watched
them all and really enjoyed it.
And I even loaded the-- It was the first music I ever bought while I was
still learning what music I, I liked.
I downloaded The Best of The Goodies on my PSP back when I was like nine or ten.
So that was the first album I bought
Yeah, iconic.
Of course, he was the face of Springwatch when it first came
on the scene in 2005 as well.
He's just, as I said, he's l- he's one of the most, if not the most prominent
British birder, that's for sure.
And of course has done so much more besides birds.
But I think birds are really his main lifelong passion,
I think it's fair to say.
And of course, Bill has had a long-standing s- association with
Birdwatch as well over the years.
He appeared in only the second issue of the magazine actually back in 1992
when he reviewed Birds of Fair Isle.
And then it was the following summer, 1993, that he began writing
a regular column in the magazine as well, which he, I think he did
for at least five years or so.
Um, And he made a number of subsequent appearances in the magazine, including
to guest edit the February 2014 issue, which featured a wonderful look back
at his birding life uh, in which he picked out 10 fond memories from around
the world including a day in spring in Central Park in New York looking
at bright colored warblers a day at Flamborough Head in autumn, which
features loads of really exciting sibes.
yeah, a d- a, a spring fall on Fair Isle as well also features.
But yeah, that we've re- we've republished that article on
Birdguides for all to read.
So that's there for you to di- digest at your will.
But yeah, really nice read.
Worth having a look back at.
On a personal level, I'd say it was quite nice and touching to be able
to speak to Bill directly in my early years as editor of the magazine.
most recently, Bill wrote several columns for the mag that ran until early 2023.
And it was an honor to have been in touch with him at those times.
I must have uh, found it slightly sur- like surreal really, that the guy that,
who had undoubtedly inspired my birding journey as a kid, and then I'd met as a
child at the British Birdwatching Fair, as it was known then, was now ringing
me up on my personal phone and talking about his columns and all things birding.
It was all… It's all a bit surreal really.
It was one of your icons there just dialing you up.
It was mad.
Must have been bizarre.
Yeah.
And his last column was about meeting Peter Scott, I remember, wasn't it?
Was that April 2023, I think?
Yeah,
I was digging that out earlier
Yep, yeah.
Eccentric slightly.
No one else like him.
Yeah.
and he will be greatly missed.
Absolutely.
I'll be digging the Little Black Bird book out before long, have another read of that
Now, I know it's a few years since I've read that, but yeah, I'll
have to dig it out again, I think.
Definitely
So in today's episode, we're going to have a look at some of the recent birding
stories that have been cropping up.
Some good news and some bad, . We're gonna start with a look at dotterel,
of which was the focus of a major paper which came out earlier this,
this month talking about the status of it as a Scottish breeding bird.
And pretty shocking statistics really.
It looks like the numbers are down pretty much 90%, i-in, in recent decades.
And pretty, pretty harrowing statistic and, and what looks like a pretty bleak
future for this really charming wader.
David, we had a feature in the magazine in more detail about this.
Do you wanna give some of your, your thoughts?
Yeah, Leah Kelly wrote a wonderful summary of the findings for the
July issue of, of Birdwatch.
I need to say it's, it's a really concerning read.
So i- it was the results of the fourth National Montane Bird Survey that it
also looked at snow bunting and, and ptarmigan, but really headlines with,
with dotterel because that's, that's the worrying news to come out of it.
Yet again the second time in a row, as with the previous survey in 2011,
no breeding birds found in England, Wales or, or even southern Scotland.
So it really feels like they're gone from those areas.
And it's, it's looking like it's getting pretty, pretty bad even
in the sort of former strongholds.
It doesn't really feel right calling them strongholds anymore of, of like
the Eastern Highlands and, and northern Scotland, where they, they only actually
found the species at 22 out of 217 sites, estimating about 112 males.
And back in the 1980s, yeah, back in the 1980s, there were
nearly 1,981 males estimated.
Wow
Yeah, not good.
And what does, what, what's being cited as factors in this decline?
The obvious one jumping out is climate change, of course
Yeah, it, well, it feels like that's the main thing here.
Fewer crane flies are around.
They really rely on crane flies in the breeding season, the
larvae of a, a particular species that you get in the hills.
And people are saying they're, they're not really seeing the adults of these
crane flies flying around as, as much.
So it seems like their food source is, is you know, depleted.
And on wintering grounds, declining in-- declining rainfall in North
Africa, that's not gonna help them.
That's not gonna hope o- help over winter survival.
And meanwhile, you've got more and more people up there bagging Monroes, often
with their dogs, you know, often off a lead grazing, you know, not always
compatible with the interests of birds like dotterel going on in large areas too.
So obviously you can reduce the effects of those things.
There, there's certain things you can do to sort of take the edge off
it with disturbance and grazing.
But when climate change is obviously pushing them back, as it is even in, in
Europe, I think the population in, in Scandinavia is fairly stable, but they're,
they're being seen to move upslope and further north already there too.
Yeah, it feels like there's only s- it's maybe just delaying
the inevitable to be honest.
It, it feels like it could be the first climate change-driven
extinction in Britain.
Yeah, pretty har-harrowing really.
And that's part of the problem, isn't it?… Warming temperatures mean
warming temperatures higher up the hills as well not just at ground level.
And there-therein lies the problem in part.
Once the dotterels get to a point where there's nowhere left to go
in Britain as seems to be becoming the case, that worryingly seems to
be spelling the end of this species as a breeding bird in Britain.
Have you ever seen dotterel on breeding grounds in Scotland?
No, I was gonna ask you if, if you had
Yeah, I have.
Yeah I, about years ago, I think it was either 2005 or
2006 off the top of my head.
I remember going up Cairngorm and seeing a male with two fluffy chicks in early
Oh, wow.
Yeah
And at the time it was, it, don't get me wrong, it was absolutely stunning to see.
So exciting to see these lovely birds on their breeding grounds.
Dotterel is one of my favorite waders, as I'm sure it probably
is for a lot of people.
We know you've got history with the species, Dave.
But yeah I just think it, at the time it felt kind of part of the furniture really.
You semi expected to go up Cairngorm in summer and have a chance of
seeing dotterel and of course now that's, that, that's not the case.
Yeah.
So were they, how close were they to the path?
Were you, like, scoping them miles away, or did you just kind of blunder upon them?
What, how was it?
We just chanced upon them really.
It wasn't too far from the cafe at the top of the ski lift.
Yeah really quite close by.
We were just walking around looking for ptarmigan, as you do.
And yeah, just found this male with two, two fluffy chicks
Oh, that's… Yeah, you might never see that again.
I might never see that now.
That's amazing.
to think, isn't it?
Yeah., How about on passage?
How about at, at, at Trowsley, places like that?
Have you seen them there?
I was going to say that, that was what I was going to get onto really.
w-we as birders further south can see what's happening really in terms of the
numbers that we're seeing on passage.
I think that's the distinctive thing from my perspective.
I rarely get to Scotland in the summer, so it's not something I see firsthand.
But what I can relate to is the decline of northbound passage
birds in late April and May.
I think about it used to be a pretty, pretty much an annual bird around here.
There were regular tripping sites both east of Peterborough and actually even
closer to where I live near Deeping.
They'd be there most years, but been assigned to the history
books really recent years.
Yeah.
Well, there used to be pubs n- well, I suppose there are now pubs that
are, are named after them from back in the day when they were, you know,
as you say, just part of the landscape in spring and, and hunted even.
They were quite a, a commonly hunted bird, weren't they, on migration, which
shows they must've been so much commoner.
But I don't think they've even been at, at Choseley drying barns, which was
always like the most famous stop-off point in my mind for them since 2023
That, that's amazing in itself.
But as you say, there were some really big flocks there, and that doesn't even
seem like too long ago, does it really?
further back than that, I think about sites when I was growing up and really
keen on twitching and whatnot, and places such as Tettney Marshes in
Lincolnshire would often get them, various places in the Cambridgeshire Fens.
Pendle Hill in Lancashire, that's another place that, almo- always would
have dotterel in April and early May,
Hmm
year without fail.
And it just it doesn't seem to get them anymore.
Yeah, I don't remember that coming up recently.
No
No.
And I think there have been local issues there such as increased
disturbance, which is similar to what you mentioned on, on breeding grounds.
But nonetheless, you'd expect birds to be turning up there
even if briefly, and doesn't be- it doesn't seem to be the case.
And yeah, th-th-this kind of overall drying up of records on passage
really does indicate, doesn't it, that something's not right there.
Yeah, I the the numbers of dotterel being reported on BirdGuides have
plummeted over the last 10 to 15 years.
It was a- actually on BirdGuides, it was… I checked this back before the pod.
It was the 1st of January 2022 when we upgraded dotterel to scarce on
the BirdGuides sighting service.
Previous to that, it had been on there as local, which, is a status
afforded to birds like long-tailed duck and wood sandpiper, which
seems scarcely believable now.
Oh yeah, I always think scarce is like the level where you would cross multiple
counties to go and see that bird because it, it's suitably rare, and, and dotterel
firmly is in that bracket, isn't it now?
It is, yeah, it is.
And even in autumn as well, you get the odd record, wouldn't you, birds
roosting on beaches, often very incr- of incredibly tame juveniles in little
groups at coastal locations, and sort of records seem to have dried up as well.
It's just sad to be losing.
It's such a unique bird.
You know, not only the landscape it lives in up in the uplands,
but also so-called role reversal.
A term maybe, y- you know, derived from our human-centric ideas of what nature is.
But, you know, where the, the males take principal responsibility for
incubation and, and chick rearing, and the, the females being the, the
bright, colorful one for a change.
Yeah, absolutely
yeah.
So it's just sorry to think that we might not be seeing so many
So I think dotterel's a really interesting one from a kind of
birder's perspective on migration.
and I think it's one of these species that easily of slips
into a negative feedback cycle.
And by that I mean we know that they're becoming less reliable
on their spring staging grounds, traditional tripping grounds, whether
that be the Cambridgeshire Fens or East Coast or wherever it might
be, a Lancashire hill, for example.
But the thing is, if they're becoming less reliable there's less
people who are gonna go and make the effort to go and look for them.
Often looking for dotterel involves quite a lot of effort.
Around me it's looking in brown fields.
In the spring there can be hundreds of brown fields to look through, and if
you think that the chance of finding a dotterel is something like one percent
or even less than that, as opposed to, say, ten, twenty percent as it might
have been a few decades ago, you're less inclined to spend the time doing it.
And the same goes for hiking up a, a hill in North Yorkshire or Lancashire.
If there's-- If it's less likely there's gonna be birds there, you're perhaps
not gonna push yourself to do it.
And therefore, as a result, I think potentially, even though they clearly
are becoming less and less regular, I-- without doubt, I do think there is an
element that they're probably getting missed as well because people just
aren't looking for them in some places
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean there's not too much overlap with other species in terms of the
time and the habitat into other things that people would be looking
for where dotterel are gonna turn up.
So you know, people probably aren't going to Trowsey Drying Barns in May
like they used to because as you say, there's been a bit of a, a, a gap in the
number of dotterel sightings, and it's gonna become a bit of a self-fulfilling
thing, isn't it, in the end?
Yeah, totally.
And I think f- from my perspective around here, we always knew that they
would be in, a couple of selections of fields in various places on the fens,
and it was like you just find the brown fields in those areas, and somewhere
between about the 20th of April and the 15th of May, there'll be some
dotterel there probably for a few days.
But that just doesn't happen anymore, so you're back to square one, and
if the birds aren't using these traditional tripping grounds, they
could therefore just be anywhere, the scale of the, the scale of the
challenge becomes all the more difficult,
yeah.
So was it, was it pea fields, your local ones when they turned up before?
'Cause that, that was always what they liked, wasn't it?
Pea fields
P- pea fields, also just bro-- any brown fields really.
Often pea fields, and they often seem to like the blacker soil,
kinda like the more peaty soil.
So most of the traditional spots around here have been on that darker soil rather
than the kind of paler sandy stuff.
Again, what that means, I don't know.
It's perhaps something to do with feeding opportunities, I guess
Yeah, I wonder if they're looking out for that while they're flying over,
seeing that dark color and, and thinking, "Right, that looks good. Let's drop in."
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, There was that flock in Cambridgeshire this spring, wasn't there?
Near, I think it was Gamblingey.
And there was a trip of birds there for about a couple of
weeks on and off, I think.
And that, as far as I know, at least not in recent years,
has not been a site for them.
It was just by chance that Mark Thomas, of the RSPB bumped into them.
And, how often is that kind of situation playing out across the country where
birds are stopping off in random locations and birders just aren't looking?
so yeah, food for thought anyway
Yeah, it would've been really interesting, you know, if a sort of
nocmig revolution came along sort of say 15 years earlier, maybe before the sort
of latest part of the decline curve.
And, and if we could compare that data to today, see if nocturnal
migrants had, had dropped off.
Obviously, it wasn't really in vogue back then, but it just
occurred to me that would've been a, an interesting comparison.
Yeah, for sure.
I do think there's probably mileage in them actually being
easier in the autumn these days.
Certainly around me anyway.
We have lots of golden plover flocks in October, November, and, you do get
the occasional dotterel in with them.
It's-- Weirdly, it's gone from being that kind of iconic bird of spring that you'd
go out and look for to being more of a, a mid to late autumn bird around here.
So again, that's something to think about
Yeah, and not unknown among winter flocks of, of European golden plover
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
There have been one or two that have wintered in my area
Yeah.
So they're, they're on the UK Red List quite firmly now.
Internationally, least concern, but the, the regional IUCN Red Lists you
know, they are on that for the UK too.
So yeah, it, it is, it's not looking good.
No, it's a really interesting species though, as we've touched on both in
terms of the role reversal when it comes to raising the young, but also
in terms of their kind of connectivity and where these birds actually breed
Oh yeah, 'cause I think both males and females have been known and
shown in the same breeding season to move between you know, Britain and
Scandinavia, I think Norway specifically.
So yeah, they'll… Like, a female will mate with a male in Scotland, leave him to
deal with the young, and then fly across the North Sea and, and find some new fella
Amazing.
Yeah
Dotterel, a clear loser of climate change.
Of that there is no doubt, and the British population now
in a rather bleak situation.
We're gonna take a short break but after we'll be back and we'll
be talking about some of the winners of recent climate change
Welcome back to the Bird Guides Podcast.
the second part of today's pod, we'll be looking at some of the other key
news stories that have been emerging over recent weeks, one of these was
the Heathland Bird Survey results.
That's the the survey that took place last year, 2025.
And in particular, it focused on three species that are doing really rather well
Nice to have some happier news
Yeah, absolutely.
And the three species in question are woodlark, warbler, and European nightjar.
And all three species have shown increases in their numbers.
woodlark, it's 29%, nightjar is 20%, and Dartford warbler 27%.
So all across the board, some good news for these species which have at times
been looking really rather precarious in their status and plight in the UK
Yeah.
Have you been seeing more of those species near you?
Not really myself because I don't really have any heathland habitat, to be honest.
It's not really… they're not really birds that are on my
radar, you know, every year.
If… We have had records of all three, but it, the, they're all very
much, as it stands anyway, they're all very much vagrants to our areas.
But you probably got a few more heaths your way, Dave.
Yeah.
I certainly did when I was in West Sussex.
I could easily nip up the road and see those, those three species.
I'm a bit further away.
I'm about an hour's drive from that kind of habitat here, but a nice
run up the road to Ashdown Forest.
You can fill your boots with Dartford warblers, woodlarks, nightjars.
They're all fairly tough birds.
Well, apart from Dartford warbler the woodlark and Dartford w- sorry, woodlark
and nightjar are quite tough birds in my sort of local listing area of Hastings
and Rother 'cause l- we don't have any heaths in, in that district either.
But we do have breeding Dartford warblers on some of the clifftops around here,
and that just feels like a bit of, you know, happy overspill from that really
burgeoning and thriving really heathland heathland population further inland.
So yeah, really good to see, and they're all just quality birds, aren't they?
All really good vocalizations, really charismatic animals
Yeah, definitely.
I, I-- my kind of experience with, with all three really is when I go on holiday
to Norfolk, to be honest, in the summer
and, or in the spring, and whether it's singing woodlarks or going at dusk to
listen to churring nightjars, or just listening to Dartford warblers scratching
away on a warm sunny morning feels like a bird associated with holidays for me.
So I'm not lucky to have them on my doorstep.
But yeah, we do get the odd one or two in, in our area.
We-- for example, we did have a woodlark this winter which spent
the winter in a, a skylark flock on the outskirts of Peterborough.
Oh, cool
S- yeah, so may- maybe that is an indication that, these things
are on the up and we should be looking out for them a bit more.
But
Yeah
of, one of the things about the census we're not just the
increase in the numbers, but also the the growth in distribution
嗯。
Of each of them.
For example, we're now seeing, aren't we, that are being found more
and more in Scotland, for example
Yeah.
And there's a Dartford warbler in, is it North Yorkshire at the moment?
Yeah, just north of Nork.
Yeah.
So just north of York
Yeah, yeah.
Which is really quite an outlier.
And yeah, but fast-forward I don't know, five, 10 years,
maybe they could be breeding.
It's probably a bit of a stretch, but they could be- certainly be breeding closer
to that kind of part, part of Britain
Yeah.
It feels like it's gonna just depend on winter weather, doesn't it, really?
That seems to be the key that, that seems to be the key takeaway.
I did-- back in my university days, I did a, a study on Dartford
warblers for my dissertation,
Oh,
right.
Didn't know that
yeah, doing species climate modeling on Dartford warbler and projecting
potential range into the future.
That's going back 15 or so years
So what did your crystal ball tell you there?
Pretty, pretty much what we're seeing really that it was gonna be a case of,
bar any kind of extreme weather, we're gonna see a, a gradual increase further
north in these specie- in the species.
but yeah, we have h- obviously had a couple of cold winters since
then that have set them back a bit.
I know that they are… Dartford warbler is one of those species, isn't
it, that seems to make advances and then get knocked back periodically?
Yeah, 'cause they were knocked back in-- After the winter of '62, '63, they were
actually down to 11 pairs in Britain, so like on the verge of national extinction.
But when you've got 4,100 territories, which i-is, is the estimate from
the latest survey, you-- there, there's surely a much lower risk,
e-especially when those harsh winters are so much less frequent now.
I think that's the thing, isn't it?
Often do we get extended freeze-ups these days?
Very scarcely if at all.
It just feels like a very unusual event now for any sort
of cold weather, doesn't it?
It feels like round here it's so rare to see the lakes freezing up these days,
and if they do, it's not for very long.
Yeah.
So I think, I think they're pretty safe for the, for the time being, aren't they?
But yeah, it's just brilliant to, to see them.
But it's, it's easy to forget that heathland habitat wasn't always there for
these birds when traditional management, you know, all the sort of common land and,
and grazing practices kind of fizzled out in the, like, 18- 17th, 18th centuries.
Heathland became much more fragmented.
Forestry didn't help going forward from there, and these birds just weren't
left with, with the places to live
Yeah, indeed.
Although it does seem that forestry, active forestry is
particularly useful for nightjar.
It's kind of a, an in…
Oh, sorry.
My dog's just barking at the postman.
got an intruder
Yeah, don't worry.
She'll pipe down.
Yeah
Yeah, no, as I was saying, I think it's i-in the case of nightjar, for
example, it's quite a, intermittent bird in the Midlands, pa- in part
because of habitat availability.
But where they do seem to crop up is at these kind of forestry plantations
where for, for a few years perhaps there's some suitable habitat, and
they might move in for a little while and then disappear again.
It-- for that reason, it's, it's not a bird I've seen in my local area,
although there-- annoyingly there was one suppressed in 2024 which
was there for a few days just in a kind of area of rough ground not
any heathland or anything like that.
It was just… I guess it was just a post-breeding bird
at the end of the season.
but it, but yeah, it's a bird that I feel like maybe with a bit of luck one summer
I might get one chirring, in one of the, in one of the local forestry plantations
o- in the sort of west of my area.
Yeah.
That, well, I've, I've know a couple of sites that you certainly wouldn't describe
as heathland in, in Kent and Sussex where, you know, the foresters have gone in,
cleared a whole area, and nightjars, like you say, have moved in for a short while.
You have to make the most of it while they are there, 'cause they're,
they're just on the lookout for that quite transient successional habitat.
And once it becomes closed up enough, they, they just move on
Yeah.
Dartford warbler is a little bit of a trickier one for me.
A nightjar tricky enough, but Dartford warbler could be anywhere.
That's the thing.
It's-- we obviously don't have any suitable breeding habitat around here,
but i-i-it's one of those birds that at some point you're just gonna look out
on one in winter perhaps following s- following a pair of stonechats around in
some rough ground or something like that
Yeah, they do like to move to the sort of lower and more coastal
areas in winter, don't they?
Even, even though the winters aren't as harsh as they used to be, they
still seem to, to prefer that security of that slightly warmer temperature
Yeah, it's can be quite unforgiving on the fens in winter, that's for sure.
Though there have been a couple of records, both in the Nene
washes area over the years.
So yeah I live in hope
Yeah.
But you know, one little figure I dug out while I was reading up on these is that
ac- people reckon that there's gonna be more than 60% of the Dartford warbler's
range in Europe as a whole is predicted to be unsuitable later this century.
So yeah, not all a rosy picture, and that shows that it's actually a, a
really good thing that we are able to, to host so many of them here now.
This, this really growing population that, that might be a really good and
important part of the world population of Dartford warbler going forward if, if I
guess because of aridification and maybe more wildfires in Southern Europe, it's,
it's just not gonna fit them so well.
Yeah, certainly silver linings and all that, isn't it?
That's the thing.
O-one of the things that I remember concluding in my dissertation was just how
much available habitat there is in Britain
should the climate allow them to be here.
You think about all the upland heathland that's there that could
potentially be colonized should it prove to become a bit more habitable
for Dartford warblers in the future.
So yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens, although say
interesting, it's slightly disconcerting that the reasons underlining why
these birds are moving, of course.
Yeah.
Although I think you can attrib- attribute it in, in quite a large part
to the positive thing of, of habitat management by, you know, the likes of
the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts creating the optimal habitat for these birds.
I think that is, is a big thing to thank for, for these positive trends.
Yeah, totally.
I think that's absolutely fair to point out.
But yeah, a- another kind of heathland bird i- in some areas,
of course, is common redstart.
And while that's not really a, a climate change related species in terms of
its range and whatnot, it has cropped up on the Bird Guide's website in
the last couple of weeks following a fascinating discovery in South Wales
Yeah, Dante Shepherd found a, a hybrid while he was on a family walk
in a quarry in, in, in South Wales.
Yeah, which is, is really an extraordinary find
Yeah, so this is a, a hybrid Common times Black Redstart.
very unusual find in Britain.
Only a handful of occurrences ever documented.
And in fact, this is only the second individual ever to have been photographed
in Britain following the first, which wasn't all that long ago, actually.
The first was only in March 2025.
It turned up in, in southern Cornwall during an influx of Black Redstarts
a classic early spring movement of that species and a male hybrid was
photographed down there on the lizard.
But yeah, a very rare bird in Britain.
But we do know that hybrids can and do occur regularly on the continent,
or reasonably regularly, I should say.
And it's interesting that the reason that is speculated for
this is human intervention really.
It's bringing the two species together
Yeah.
Like you say, it's, it's a more common hybrid in Northern
and, and Central Europe.
But yeah, this, this situation where you've got a quarry, you know, that rocky
terrain that's more black redstart turf right on the edge of prime woodland,
like mature woodland for, for common redstart, just brings these species
i-into a meeting point that, that just wouldn't have happened before.
Yeah, I think it sounds like this, this site that Danze had the bird
at is a kind of established or semi-established Black Redstart
breeding site, or has been in the past.
And of course then has Common Redstarts breeding in the adjacent forest.
So it brings these two species close together and creates the conditions
and of course, while there's nothing to absolutely prove that this bird was
born there, that it turned up in spring, territory for several days suggests
that it perhaps the area rather than it being some really random coincidence.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you listen to recordings of it?
It had a really interesting song
Yeah, it did.
It was quite curious, wasn't it?
Yeah, I thought it, to my ear, it actually sounded more like a, a common
than a black redstart, I, I have to say.
I think if I'd been walking the area and not been analyzing it too
hard, I might have just dismissed it as, as a common redstart.
It sort of had that almost chaffinch-like opening and that kind
of thoughtful trailing flourish at the end, and I, I picked out quite
a lot of mimicry in that as well.
So that I, I've quite enjoyed listening to the recording and trying to identify what
species it seemed to be impersonating.
Yeah, it's w- well worth having a look at the article which is
on the Bird Guide's website.
It was published back on the 22nd of July.
And Dante's done a really nice write-up on the bird, the circumstances of the
discovery his initial impressions of the bird, both in terms of plumage,
looks and vocalizations, as David says.
And then also just talks through in detail the identification
of the bird and what led him to believe it was a hybrid after all.
As, as we've said, v- a really unusual and interesting bird,
certainly in a British perspective.
Yeah, it was top field work I think there, and well worth listening to recordings.
It does… It, I say it sounds more like a common redstart, but it does
throw in that wonderful crackling sound of black redstart now and then.
And yeah, it's throwing in like tree pipit, song thrush meadow
pipit, great tit, chaffinch calls.
Yeah, just, just love… You can get a lot out of listening to a redstart.
Yeah it's both species I don't really hear enough of, to be honest, where
I am in the lowland Eastern England.
We just don't get them.
We get common redstarts on passage in spring and more often autumn.
In fact, I had my first of the autumn just a couple of days ago over the weekend.
But
Nice
black redstart is a rarity for me around here.
They have a history of breeding sporadically in Peterborough,
but yeah, it's-- they're just not species I see enough of, sadly
Yeah, I think they must be under-recorded as a, as a breeding bird.
You know, I've been in areas where they are breeding, and unless you're walking
around a, usually a town, usually a very urban area, unless you're getting up at
3:00, 4:00 in the morning to hear that song they're just gonna be very high
on the rooftops and dropping in and out of people's gardens, and just not very
conspicuous for the rest of the day
Yeah, I I made the mistake of going into Peterborough at 4:30 in the morning
on a Sunday m- on a Sunday morning recently, which I was… it was quiet.
I was anticipating it to be quiet, but there were a few interesting
sights and sounds, shall we say, as I was wandering around the city
center hoping to hear black redstarts.
Failed on black redstarts, but there were some late-night revelers
still out and about enjoying themselves, let's put it that way.
Yeah, some cultural content.
Yeah, quite indeed.
Hmm.
from that cultural content, let's move on.
Have you seen the news about bearded vulture in the Netherlands, Dave?
Yeah, so if you're a keen Dutch lister, you- it's now fair game.
You can, you can tick it
I thought that was really interesting.
And yeah, in the context of the British records that we've had over the last
decade, some really fascinating news and a really interesting revelation.
Essentially what's happened is that the Dutch Rarities Committee has said that
it will accept all known wild-born or wild-hatched birds, I should say, from
the alpine population as wild, and they will be accepted as naturally occurring.
In other words and that's-- this is obviously the most
important thing for birders in many cases they're now tickable.
So yeah an extensive review was conducted by some Dutch ornithologists, of which--
one of which was Hans Polman, who is a name that many birders might recognize.
He was heavily involved in determining the origins and the story of the, the famous
twenty-twenty British bird that, that occurred between May and was it October?
Yeah, when it left at Beachy Head, it flew out to sea there.
Did you see it there?
No, I was just, I was on my way back from city when that was going on.
Ouch.
Did you see it at all?
Yeah, I got it at I think it was at that place wonderfully called Cutthroat Bridge.
Oh, yeah, up in, in the Peak
District
I didn't fancy the big hike with a-- It sounded like there was a
pretty treacherous hole that half of Britain's birders fell into.
Yeah.
So I didn't fancy that.
So f- when, when it came through that you could just see it from
a lay-by, I thought, "Yeah, let's, let's get a bit of that."
That sounds nice and easy
Yeah.
It would've been nice to have seen it in Sussex, though.
Yeah, it was quite surreal.
It actually turned up in the Peterborough area.
Did you know that?
Oh, it's on just on a road, wasn't it?
Or just blocking traffic?
Yeah, have you seen that legendary photo of it just s- sitting in the middle
of the road with cars like queuing up
That was amazing.
Yeah
Absolutely amazing.
But yeah, to see that knocking about in the Fens was something
that I don't think I'll see again.
I was actually in Ireland for most of its stay there.
I think it was around a few days in the Fens.
And yeah, I was actually on my way back from Ireland and up
with the bird on my last morning.
Oh, sorry, its last morning when I got back, and yeah just absolutely mad just
driving down this Fenland road and f- flat landscape for miles around, and
then just literally flying straight over my car, this massive bearded vulture.
it was just a sight that'll Totally surreal and f- will probably never
happen again, but amazing bird.
But this new Dutch criteria that bird would be tickable.
Yeah.
So is it,
born bird, wasn't it?
so are, are they backdating it like that?
Are they saying, you know, five years ago if you saw one it, it counts?
That I don't know.
But it does beg questions about what the BoU might do about them
Yeah.
I wonder yeah, I wonder if it won't quite be quite such a, a expeditious
decision, but it might be down the line
no, of c- of course at the moment birds like that sit on category
E, which feels like a bit of a disservice to me to a degree
Hmm.
Yeah, I mean, it feels like if you're-- the only, the only
other alternative… You've got two choices really, haven't you?
You've, you're either looking at a population like that of a bird that's been
reintroduced and thinking it, it's looking like it's going in the right direction.
They're breeding in the wild.
Looks like a success.
You know, let's enjoy them, let's count them on a list.
Or you say, we're gonna wait, I don't know, what would it be?
Ten, 20, could be 30 years before y-you've really got a,
a firmly long-term established population of multiple generations.
And
with long-lived birds like that, isn't it?
yeah.
ages
And that's just not, certainly not compatible with the game, so
to speak, of birding, of listing.
It, it's not gonna work.
So I definitely favor this approach of if it looks like it's going in the right
direction, rubber stamp it, and then, you know, if it turns out it was just a blip
and, and it all, and they fizzle out and the population doesn't do well, then you
can always revise that at a later date
Yeah I completely agree.
I think it's it's something that needs looking at and, while it
perhaps doesn't need major ch- changes to how we treat these birds,
it feels a bit of a disservice lumping them in with things that have
genuinely escaped from captivity.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and similar with-- I wonder if it might somehow set
a precedent for the white-tailed eagles in, in England as well.
You know, obviously we can go up to Scotland and, and see longer established
populations of, of reintroduced white-tailed eagles up there.
But we're having a similar situation of the birds that we're seeing roaming
around here in Sussex that, you know, I know have, have roamed towards your
way too, and people have seen them from Cornwall up to northern England.
And that population, do you wait, say, decades or shall we just say, "Look,
they're, they're breeding now, you know, let's, let's call them category C
and, and put them on our list as well"?
Exactly.
Per- perhaps it's a case of wild-born birds, as the Dutch have done, it's
just treating the wild-born birds as the ones that are tickable rather
than the, the introduced individuals.
I was just, I was actually just looking at this story about, about from 2020 about
the the bearded vulture that toured the UK that year, and its parents, so bear, bear
in mind this was 2020, but the parents of that bird released in 1988 and 199…
'80, sorry, 1988 and 1989.
So gives you a s- a sense of the scale that we're dealing with here, and
of course it's gonna be similar-ish with white-tailed eagles, isn't it?
How many of the birds up in Scotland are direct releases from Norway?
Certainly if you go to Ireland now and you're lucky enough to see a, eagle there,
as I have been on one or two occasions and you- you're wondering, are these birds
that have been introduced from Norway, 10, 15 years ago, however long it might be?
Yeah.
And isn't that how they, they play it in, in the States with California condor
that they basically said, "Yeah, we could be waiting forever." You know,
some birders might have, have died by the time we can really prove that
these things are, are bedded in again.
So let's just let everyone enjoy them and, and count them.
I think that's a reasonable position to take, to be honest,
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's how they played it out there.
So I, I definitely favor that approach.
I think it's, it's sensible.
It's it doesn't need to be-- You know, this thing doesn't need to be
tied into, you know, decades-long population dynamic studies necessarily
Yeah, absolutely.
And ultimately though the underlying thing here is that Bearded Vulture
is doing well in Europe again,
which is great.
It's been a long time since the, the species has been like this, and, these
inc- this increase in extralimital records that we're seeing now,
including the, the two British records, but they seem to be almost annual
really on the near continent now.
It seems like most years the, the Dutch or the Germans are, or even
the Danes are getting these birds.
We just have to remember that's a reflection of the species'
success in the Alps, and that's something to be celebrated
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, w- wasn't it amazing seeing that one, that picture of
that one in the Arctic tussling with, with a white-tailed eagle?
What a picture
Amazing.
It if you haven't seen it, it is on the Bird Guide's website, listener.
Really extraordinary series of photographs from the island of Røst
in northern Norway, I think, isn't it?
Where
this, it's tussling with one of the local white-tailed eagles.
Absolutely bonkers
Yeah.
Bird photo of, of all time for me.
That, that's just one, one of the top ones I've ever seen.
Just the, the way they're looking at each other and yeah, the, the posture
and the background is just perfect.
Pin sharp as well
Yeah, absolutely.
So it might not be too long until we're seeing another bearded
vulture over here in Britain.
And to be honest, you thought this summer, the way it's been with so much
high pressure and hot weather, it might have been the year for it to happen.
But it hasn't yet, at least.
But there have been some really good rarities around last week or so.
Of course, our last- on our last pod, we talked about some legendary July rarities.
And before that we were talking about some of the, the latest
highlights being seen across Britain.
But a lot's happened since then, hasn't it, Dave?
Long-tailed shrike-note,
yeah.
Who, who would have thought that, that-- I mean, when Ian missed he, he didn't
quite get up there in time for the, the bird in Fife, and I said, "Well,
you know how these things are. It's not necessarily gonna be decades until the
next one. Y-y-you might be surprised how fast it comes around again."
I didn't expect it to be almost the next day that one was found again, you
know, in a very accessible location.
Yeah, and just a little bit more context on this.
So it does appear to be a different bird.
Mm-hmm.
so the news broke on the 18th, I think it was on Birdguides.
It was put out on the morning of the 18th that this bird had been found on
the Gloucestershire Oxfordshire border.
But it transpired that it had been found up- on approximately the
8th of July, which was the final day of the Fife bird's presence.
That was the day that David and I were up there seeing it with David's dog, Nevis.
But it's since transpired that it had been found-- this bird in Gloucestershire
was found on the 9th, so the day after the Fife bird disappeared.
So an extraordinary coincidence you have this Fife bird disappearing, then the next
day one turning up in Gloucestershire.
The, the automatic assumption would be, "Ah, surely that's the
same bird relocating." But it does seem, looking at the photos and
analyzing the bird's, the two birds' plumage that they're different birds
Yeah.
And of course, the, the next thought is, is this too good to be true?
Could this be you know, some kind of escape event or… 'Cause
people have been breeding, not many people, but it has been bred in
captivity in recent years in Britain.
So that's an inevitable question.
Personally, I think, you know, the forces that led to one arriving in Britain could
easily lead to two, and probably in a lot of cases of these extreme vagrants,
there may well be another one out there.
It may not have been the one individual that has made it across continents, and
it's just that, you know, luck usually means that, or, you know, s- probability
usually means that only one is found.
But in this case, a second one has.
And if you're keeping long-tailed shrikes, it's gonna be a pretty valuable bird.
You wouldn't think you'd just easily let them go.
No, quite.
Ultimately this bird remains on site.
And I think this one is doing what we expected the Fife bird to do really,
and that's just sit around and molt.
A lot of the photos from the last few days show it to be in really heavy
molt, so I can't envisage this bird's gonna be going anywhere anytime soon.
So yeah, it could be around for a few weeks to come yet
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, all for it.
You know, more and more people can enjoy that species in Britain now
Yeah, a huge twitch there on the first couple of days, wasn't
there, by the looks of things, and un-unsurprisingly given the location.
Yeah.
get to
Yeah, absolutely.
And there's been some other stuff going on.
There was a, a Pale Moth, Eleonora's Falcon seen flying in off the sea
at North Foreland on the 24th.
There's been quite a few night herons turning up, including a, a
flock of four in North Yorkshire.
North Ronaldsay scored a Barolo's Shearwater or a Barolo type the other day.
So yeah, there's been quite a lot going on.
Yeah, it seems like there's a few night herons about.
Whether that's a legacy of this lasting hot and dry summer, I'm not sure.
But feels like if you're a patch birder pretty much anywhere in the UK at the
moment night heron is surely in play.
It's probably gonna be a case of getting out very early or very late and trying
some of your local heron hotspots.
Whether that's a, whether that's a colony or just a favored feeding spot.
For example, around me at the moment at Baston Fen, there's a few of the,
the few of the scrapes there are just drying out, so they're absolutely
full of little egrets at the moment.
I had up to 60 little egrets there the other day.
And yeah, you're just thinking it would be so nice for a night heron to be here.
I keep going back and checking, but it's gonna be dry in a few
days, so that opportunity may pass.
But yeah, definitely one to be on the lookout for.
And as I alluded to earlier, was a bit of weather over the weekend, wasn't there?
After such a hot and dry July so far, there was a bit of a westerly
kicked in and there was a little bit of rain in western areas.
And finally, we saw a bit of sea watching action with Bridges
of Ross picking up, didn't it?
It had some good tallies over the weekend.
Saturday produced 28 Wilson's Storm-Petrels, which I think is the
second highest ever land-based total
Wow.
Ireland.
Yeah
and there were hundreds, several hundred Cory's and a few hundred Greats, I think.
So yeah, it feels like the birds are clearly out there.
It's just gonna be a case of waiting for the westerlies to properly kick
in, which surely at some point they're going to, although looks like it's
gonna be another hot week ahead.
Oh, another one.
Gosh.
Yeah.
Well we'll look forward to that weather coming.
I think Wales had its record count of Wilson's storm petrel as well, didn't it?
Of nine this week.
So yeah, it's all to play for
It's amazing, really.
Yeah, so we'll see.
And oh, just a shout-out actually to Belvide Reservoir.
That place constantly amazes me and frustrates me as a, as an inland Midlands
patcher, just how many good birds it gets.
You see it had a Whiterump Sandpiper over, over the weekend following
a, a Stone Curlew last week.
But yeah, that's, I saw something from Steve Nuttall on social media
saying that's the 10th Whiterump Sandpiper that he's seen at
Does that include that big flock?
Yeah, it do- it does, to be fair.
So he had that flock of eight last autumn, but then he also had an adult,
I think it was August 2022, he said, so that's 10 in the space of what?
Four years or something.
For a water body in the middle of the Midlands that's pretty impressive going.
And
Yeah
Him and his cohort seem to dig out some cracking stuff there repeatedly.
And he did-- he wrote a good, really good article about Belvide in in
Birdwatch a couple of years ago.
I think it was the May 2024 issue.
It's well worth having a read of that
Absolutely.
Yeah, they do call it the Golden Pond for a reason
Plenty of golden rarities there over the years.
Okay.
That's all we've got time for in today's episode of the Birdguides podcast.
We'll be back next week with episode five, uh, when we'll be looking at the
joys of patch birding in August, arguably the best birding month of the calendar,
that I'm certainly very excited about.
In the meantime, you can keep up with everything Birdguides related
at birdguides.com, where you'll find the latest news, sightings,
and everything else that we do.
All the stories that we talked about in today's pod, can be found as
part of the Birdguides newsletter, which you can sign up for for
free at birdguides.com/newsletter.
But in the meantime, say bye for now and we'll see you next week
See ya