Birding Western Palearctic

This category has been changed from Birding Europe to Western Palearctic.

Featured Bird Blogger of the Week

Howdee all, Hope you are all in a tropical environment and staying toasty warm. If you aren’t then I feel for you. As I type this, snow covers the ground […]

Slaty-backed Gull in Britain?

A Potential First. A WOW factor adult gull was seen and photographed today by Dominic Mitchell. I think it really looks very cool! A little frustratingly he didn’t manage to see the wing pattern – […]

Get out more Martin!

Sheffield in northern England is well known for its former steelworks. Its where I live with my wife, Sharon and my 2 teenage daughters, Emily and Abigail. 4 years ago […]

Long-legged Buzzard twitching mega rarity

“Is this really a Long-legged Buzzard?” was the question from Reinhard Hölzl, a friend and local photographer (check out Reinhard’s website here) with two photos attached to the message (top […]

Going for Gold

Goldcrest Christmas I thought I had managed to get away with going through all of freezing October, November and snow-filled December in the UK without getting some nasty Winter bug. […]

Mystery Christmas Bird

How do you follow a post like Rich’s Christmas Quetzal’s. I can’t. So I thought I would lower the tone and move into Birdquiz mode. It’s wildfowl season, at least that’s what […]

The Capercaille

The Western Capercaille (Tetrao urogallus) is one of the most emblematic birds of the Alps, amongst the people of the Alps, it is probably just behind the Golden Eagle. This […]

Empty bird feeders

I’ve been feeding birds since I moved to my recent town. Feeders had been quite busy with nice number of species seen. This year something has changed as I could […]

Snow Birding

I like the Snow! But then I did spend 8 childhood years in Canada, 2 of them in Brandon, Manitoba where temperatures reached down to -40 degrees. Cold- you have […]

What’s your Christmas BIRD?

In the UK we will soon be besieged with Christmas cards. THE bird species which will be more in evidence than any other will be the European Robin. Not the Robin of North America (Turdus migratorius), but a much […]

Snow Buntings in a suit

Tirol is a pretty much a winter wonderland – great big pointy Alps, covered in fluffy white snow. Picture book, really. And you would think that with all these great […]

Leo Musings . . . .

Time Spent with Leo’s . . . Fair Isle can be a special place to enjoy many migratory birds, but one bird in particular stands out to me as a […]

Live with the Mystery…

Someone recently repeated back to me a strap-line I like to use: “Always Discovering”. Well I have really been enjoying November 2010 on the discoveries front. In order to ‘do’ discovery, we also have to admit that […]

Wallcreepers!!!

The Wallcreeper has got to be one of the most spectacular and enigmatic of mountain birds. Their appearance, behaviour, feeding, breeding, migration, call… all lend to create an unforgettable and intriguing bird. Rarely seen and very difficult to photograph, there are still massive gaps in our scientific understanding of the Wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria, Mauerläufer, El treparriscos, Le Tichodrome échelette, Il picchio muraiolo). I have now taken tens of thousands of photos of the Wallcreepers here in this region, and they continue to stun me every time I see them.