Birding Articles
Field notes, identification, migration and conservation in Britain, with emphasis on East Anglia.
Patch Birding: What Regular Visits Teach You
A birding patch is a place you return to regularly. Getting to know its birds helps you learn their calls, track their behaviour, and notice seasonal changes. Accurate lists and counts also build a dated record that can contribute to research and local conservation.
Fatbirder: Planning a Birding Trip at Home or Abroad
Fatbirder brings together destination guides, reserve links, checklists and trip reports. A practical introduction to planning a birding visit in Britain or abroad.
How to Use eBird: Recording Birds and Understanding Your Local Patch
How to record a birding visit in eBird, keep track of your local patch and make sense of seasonal reports, Targets and Alerts. With examples from Snettisham and the Norfolk overview, plus how Merlin connects to your records.
How to Use Xeno-canto for Bird Sound Identification
An editorial review of Xeno-Canto, the global open-access wildlife audio repository. Learn how active time-frequency spectrograms, precise subspecific geographic filtering, and background species annotations turn subjective listening into verifiable bioacoustic fieldcraft.
Whooper vs Bewick’s Swan: How to Tell Them Apart
Whooper or Bewick’s? Compare adult bill patterns, understand why young swans need a different approach, and learn how researchers recognise individual birds. A practical guide with clear photographs, illustrations and a short comparison with Mute Swan.
UK thrush identification: Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Redwing and Fieldfare
Song and Mistle Thrush can be difficult to separate; winter flocks add Redwing and Fieldfare to the comparison. This practical guide examines head patterns, spotting, proportions and calls, showing which features remain useful when a bird is distant or partly hidden.
Photography as Field Evidence: Identifying a Young Spotted Flycatcher
A distant flycatcher appeared only briefly on a dark, rainy day. Three soft photographs taken in Auto mode preserved its crown, wing and tail well enough to test an initial Red-breasted Flycatcher impression and support identification as a young Spotted Flycatcher.
BirdNET Live Review: Professional Bioacoustics for Your Local Patch
BirdNET Live places continuous acoustic analysis, point counts, walking surveys, scheduled recording and research-compatible exports on a phone. This formal review examines how patch birders can use it for repeat monitoring, how its filters affect accuracy and where human checking remains essential.
Tree Sparrow vs House Sparrow: How to Tell Them Apart
Tree and House Sparrows are easiest to separate by the head. This evidence-led guide explains juvenile Tree Sparrows and female and juvenile House Sparrows, while showing why size and habitat should remain supporting clues. It also covers the rare male Spanish Sparrow.
Can You Trust Merlin Sound ID? How to Decide Which Identifications to Believe
Merlin Sound ID can alert you to a bird before you recognise its call, but the name on the screen is only a suggestion. This practical guide explains how to check the recording, judge unusual results and avoid letting the app shape what you think you are seeing.
Marsh Tit or Willow Tit? Calls, Plumage and Habitat Compared
Calls provide the safest separation of Marsh Tit and Willow Tit, but a silent bird can sometimes be identified from the upper mandible and a combination of cheek, wing and habitat clues. This guide ranks the useful characters and the common traps.