Tales from Urban Birders
Series of blogs and articles written by people about urban birds
Moi, a budding birder? A birding odyssey in France
by Gayle Smith Padgett
Throughout 2019 we crisscrossed France from the Mediterranean to the English Channel, the Pyrenees to the Alps. Bird highlights were the Eurasian Eagle Owl in the Alpilles, Guillemot...
© Ruth ChambersQuietening Skies
by Ruth Chambers
The demise of Starlings in Newcastle...
The Desert Osprey of Qatar
by Adam Cairns
An osprey sighting is always memorable. Those fierce yellow eyes and pale plumage make it a highly distinctive bird and that’s before you find one fishing...
Birding My Urban Nature Reserve
by Domen Stanič
ŠKOCJANSKI ZATOK (South West SLOVENIA). My name is Domen and I work as a conservation ornithologist at the Slovenian BirdLife partner DOPPS...
Urban Birding in London
by Kabir Kaul (aged 13)
London. A city you wouldn’t associate with bird migration, wetlands, woodlands and general greenery. Well, guess what! All this exists within a capital that has...
Floodplain Forest Nature Reserve, near Milton Keynes, England
by Ashley Beolens
A spring of Eurasian Teal leaps into the air. The soft piping sound of their alarmed calls filling the air where it accompanies the excite...
Introducing Lodge Lake
by Ashley Beolens
As a town dweller my local patches are usually urban in their setting. Lodge Lake in Great Holm, a small balancing lake in the heart of Milton Keynes,...
Malmö – an urban birding hotspot
by Erik Hirschfeld
Malmö, just opposite Copenhagen is a fantastic place for urban birding. There are many reasons for this. As it is situated so far south in Sweden...
Winter Birding in Beijing, China
with Terry Townshend
However, for birders, it’s worth putting on the thermal underwear and braving those icy temperatures, winter can be a brilliant times.
Counting vultures around abattoirs in Kampala, Uganda
by Charlotte Beauvoisin
Counting vultures in and around Kampala’s abattoirs is one of Nature Uganda’s more unusual member activities...
Black Noddy – a first for Hong Kong
by John Holmes
Three species of tern breed on the rocky islets off the northeast coast of Hong Kong’s New Territories: Bridled, Black-naped and Roseate Terns...
Urban Birding in Hong Kong
with Matthew Kwan
Hong Kong is a world renowned, world-class metropolis and one of the most expensive cities to live in owing to the hugely inflated land and property...
A Seabird Colony in a City. Preston’s tern colony, Lancashire, England
with Paul Ellis
Right in the middle of the City of Preston in Lancashire there is a thriving Common Tern colony at Preston Dock. The dock is owned and...
Merlin: Easy ID in the technological age
We've all had a moment in which we wished we had a pocket field guide. Merlin, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a free app for iOS and Android smart devices that helps...
How urban nature hooked me in
by Evan Landy
My passion for nature did not originate within towns and cities. My first love was for the sea. Misty mornings with the soft sound. ...
Central Park and Jamaica Bay, NY
with Simon Tickle
If you intend to visit New York, then a few hours waving your binoculars around in Central park is a great way to spend your time. The accessibility ...
Urban birds: Tails of the Unexpected
with Paul Brook
It was my lunch break and I was walking by the river to the optician’s in town when a low-flying turquoise flash zipped over the water and into a...
Birding Brooklyn Bridge Park
by Heather Wolf
Brooklyn Bridge Park opened in 2010, transforming a series of dilapidated piers into a beautiful 85-acre waterfront park with some of...
Birding Newcastle
with Keith Gunning
Newcastle’s most famous city birds are undoubtedly the Kittiwakes that nest on the Tyne Bridge, thirteen miles from the sea. It is...
Birding Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens
with Des McKenzie
Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens (open dawn to dusk) are located in the heart of Inner London (City of Westminster and Inner London...
Birding in East London
with Andy Maguire
Having lived and birded in East London for over thirty years I have witnessed a tremendous number of changes in the birdlife of the...
Birding in Delhi
with Paul Milne
Delhi is a huge city with a population of over 14 million people. As a birding venue the city has a remarkable number of interesting sites. In spite...
Urban Patch in Columbus, Ohio, USA
with Aaron Boone
Birding is literally a way of life for me. I have been fascinated by feathered creatures since before I can remember. Throughout the majority of my....
Birding in Chennai, India
with Ranjit Henry
Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is India’s third largest city and capital of Tamil Nadu State. It is situated half way down on the east coast of...
Urban Birding in Cape Town, South Africa
with Ross Wanless
Raptors hold a unique fascination for birders because in our own hearts we admire and relate to the predatory instincts in other creatures...
Cape Town, South Africa
with Nathalie Gilbert
Mojitos and Black Oystercatchers. Not a bad combination and a strong possibility if you visit Cape Town. We stayed at the Radisson Hotel on...
Budapest Birding
by Gerard Gorman
My local patch is an urban one and a place that I can get to in ten minutes from home... the deciduous woods of the Buda Hills. ...
Bucharest Birding
by Gerard Gorman
There can't be many European capital cities in which a Globally Threatened bird species occurs, but that is the case with Bucharest. The bird...
The American Robin
by Michael Fritz-Graham
I'll take Manhattan!... and they have, by storm and popular demand. Possibly the most famous and loved bird in the USA, the American Robin…
Monk (Quaker) Parakeets in New York City
by Michael Fritz-Graham
How The Quakers Landed. Urban legend has it (now documented) that c.1967 a large, live shipment of monk parakeets left their...
Urban birding in Paramaribo
with Jan Dolphijn
In northern South America, just to the left of Venezuela is a small country of which 80% consists of undisturbed rainforest. This nation is...
Chimney Swifts
by Michael Fritz-Graham
What Is That? Twittering, chattering little acrobatic cinders with wings have been swooping in and out of your chimney stack. They're not bats. ...
Buenos Aires. Carnival Birding!
by German Pugnali
The vibrant capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, is one of the largest cities in Latin America. Sophisticated tango dancing, superb steaks...
The Uncommon “Common” Nighthawk
by Michael Fritz-Graham
There is something incredibly sad, even tragic about a summer night in New York City without that magic spirit of the starry sky, ...
Mount Auburn Cemetery. Cambridge, MA, USA
with Andrew Culshaw
For me, birding has always been primarily about covering a local patch, mainly in urban or suburban locations. One of the most …
Holland Park, London
with David Jeffreys
If you were travelling westwards along either of two major routes out of London, you would probably see the well known open space of ...