Tag: Ornithology

An Identification Guide to Garden Birds of Britain and North-West Europe is a photographic guide to 75 species of bird most commonly found in or over the gardens of Britain and North-West Europe. The text combines scientific facts with affectionate descriptions of the birds’ identifying features, including sex and age differences, habits, nest types, eggs and calls. The introduction contains tips on how to identify birds, how to look after garden birds, which species can be seen throughout the year, a glossary and anatomy details. For each species, there are two or three photographs labelled with distinguishing features where appropriate, a calendar showing the time of year when the adult can be seen and star facts that give further proof of the birds’ fascinating features.

Dominic Couzens is an award-winning nature writer with 40 books and hundreds of published articles to his name. His best-known books include An Identification Guide to Garden Insects of Britain and North-West Europe, The Secret Lives of Garden Birds, Britain’s Mammals (WildGuides) and Save Our Species. Carl Bovis is a nature photographer with a particular passion for birds. The advent of digital photography has given him the opportunity to capture the birds he sees and share them with the world.

We were lucky enough to ask both Dominic and Carl a few questions about what inspired them to produce this guide, what the process was like to assemble it and the importance of providing habitats for birds in our gardens.

What inspired you to produce this introductory guide to garden birds?

Dominic: As a regular Twitter follower I quickly became aware of Carl’s work. What stood out for me was his wonderfully giving attitude, really helping “ordinary” people connect with birds and birdwatching with the use of clever and funny bird photos, as well as wondrous ones. He encourages everyone to get involved and to enjoy nature, and he does it in a unique way.

So from my (Dominic’s) point of view, it was a no-brainer to cooperate with Carl on an entry-level guide to garden birds, with his own special take.

This book follows on from a book on garden insects published with another first-time author, Gail Ashton, last year. In both guides we have used light-hearted introductions and mentioned star facts about each species, to helve delve into the subject’s life.

How did you choose which species to include in this guide?

Our subject was garden birds, and since we wanted to cover northern Europe we had a good range to choose from. Most species pick themselves, but the guide will stand or fall on what we include.

This guide is full of many wonderful and illustrative photographs. What was the process like to assemble these? Where there any species that were particularly difficult to attain clear photos of?

Carl: I’m known for taking photos of the common birds, a lot of which many serious bird photographers turn their noses up at! So a book about garden birds was perfect for me, as I have taken many photos of them over the last few years and had many to choose from. I also have a passion for catching birds in flight, the shape and angles of their wings and tail fascinate me. Obviously this is an ID book, so perched birds are essential, but we’ve included lots of flight shots too.

It’s very rewarding for me to have my photos in this guide. A couple of years ago I was talking to a serious birder at Steart Marshes and he said to me; ‘your photos of birds are very engaging, but they’d never be in a mainstream bird book’. I didn’t take offence, I like that many of my photos are different to the norm, but at the same time, I’m happy now to have proved him wrong!

It’s also an honour to collaborate with Dominic on this, as before I even knew him personally, I had bought and enjoyed many of his previous books, and had attended one of his fascinating talks on bird behaviour. He is nature-writing ‘royalty’ as far as I’m concerned.

The shy and rarer garden birds were obviously toughest to get clear photos of, especially ones that don’t visit my own little Somerset garden where many of the photos were taken. So birds like Bullfinch, Treecreeper and Redstart were a challenge. If you get them in your garden, consider yourself lucky!

Included with this interview are a few of my favourite photos from the book.

Given the many pressures facing our garden birds, are there any species in this guide that you think won’t be so common in coming years?

Dominic: We have included a number that are declining, such as Marsh and Willow Tits, Chaffinches and Greenfinches. The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is in serious trouble, and both House Martins and Swifts are on the wane. There are others, too.

But I do think it’s very important to let people just discover and enjoy birds. I hope the book inspires first and foremost.

This guide includes a section on looking after garden birds, giving tips as to how people with gardens can help. How important is it that people make their gardens into good habitats for birds?

Dominic: Gardens are incredibly important for two reasons. They are the best place for people and birds to meet, and for people to get excited about birds and love them.

Secondly, gardens are where everybody can be a conservationist. The overall fortunes of birds and other wildlife often feel as though they are outside our control, but in gardens we can make decisions that directly affect wildlife. If enough people realised how important their backyard decisions were to wildlife, they might be inspired to do more.

Are there any plans to continue this series and, if so, which other species groups that you would like to make an identification guide about?

Dominic: Yes, a book on Trees is already well in production. Any others in the series may require us to get John Beaufoy, our publisher, drunk so that we can persuade him to do some more.

An Identification Guide to Garden Birds of Britain and North-West Europe by Dominic Couzens and Carl Bovis is published by John Beaufoy Publishing in June 2023 and is available from nhbs.com.

When the Kite Builds…: Why and How We Restored Red Kites Across Britain is an informative and comprehensive examination of the project to reintroduce red kites to England and Scotland. Mike Pienkowski, the chairmen of this project, describes why the decision was taken and how it was implemented, as well as examining the success of the experiment and exploring the outcomes from this success. Chapters cover how nestlings were collected and imported, how the kites were reared, the initial survival after release, education and public awareness, and much more.

Below is our interview with Mike Pienkowski, where we discuss how he became involved in this project, whether population recovery would have been possible without reintroduction, how the increase in red kites has impacted or enhanced the British countryside, and more. When the Kite Builds… was published in February 2023.

Dr Mike Pienkowski will be signing copies of his book at the NHBS stand, number S107, in Swallow Marquee at Global Birdfair on Saturday 15th of July between 2–3pm.

When the Kite Builds… is a comprehensive overview and analysis of the project to restore red kites to Britain. How did you become involved in this project and why did you decide to write this book?

From the mid-1980s, I was Head of Ornithology at the Nature Conservancy Council (then the UK Government conservation agency). NCC was struggling to implement legislation which it had not drafted, and which tended to give the false impression that conservationists were always negative to others. Among a review of all the projects we needed to meet bird conservation needs, I wanted to include something clearly positive and cooperative. There were at the time three globally threatened bird species which occurred in Britain. One was red kite, whose range was now restricted to Europe, and declining across most of it. Red kites had been common across Britain in the Middle Ages, and valued as the recycling agents of the time, clearing bodies from city and countryside, but had later been exterminated from England, Scotland and Ireland, with just a tiny isolated and interbred population surviving in central Wales involving intense protection. Could we restore red kites across Britain? Colleagues in RSPB had been thinking along similar lines, and we formed a joint project team, which I chaired. From 1984, we researched all aspects and began an experimental introduction in 1989. When this proved successful by 1995, we encouraged others to use our methods in other appropriate locations across the country.

I wanted to document the process, the full story of what one reviewer described as “a mixture of science, politics and luck” – especially as there have been few books addressing all aspects of science-based conservation projects. I had started the book in the mid-1990s – but various things intervened. I went back to it a couple of times and finished it during lockdown. It is actually a much better book now than it would have been 25 years ago, both because we can see the real outcomes and I can be more open now than would have been possible then.

Chapter 10 discusses education and public awareness, especially among landowners and gamekeepers. Do you believe that population recovery would have been possible without reintroduction through extensive campaigns to educate the public to reduce persecution and increase suitable habitats or was the existing population too small to be viable?

I think that the two elements worked together. In fact, we planned in the hope that they would. Although we considered that, in much of the country, illegal persecution was much reduced, making releases viable, we knew that this was not the case everywhere and, especially when the young kites dispersed, that we would probably lose a few to this vile activity (which by far the majority of land-owners and game-keepers deplore). We found that the public were horrified by deaths from such causes, particularly of birds imported to correct previous human errors. We are grateful to the public, police and public health authorities for securing several successful prosecutions. These and the campaigns did lead to a reduction in such activity. This has allowed not only red kites but also other species, such as buzzard and raven, to repopulate some of their former ranges.

There have been reports that the illegal killings of birds of prey have been surging across the UK in recent years. Has this affected the red kite populations, and do you think it will impact the success of any other bird of prey species’ reintroductions?

Despite the overall positive trend in decent decades, illegal killings have continued, particularly in certain regions of the country, particularly those with many moorland shooting estates. Whilst most estates are probably law-abiding, it does not take many to devastate a bird of prey population. This is not limited to reintroduction projects but applies strongly to some species, such as the hen harrier, which would be doing so much better without this activity. In the same areas that hen harriers suffer, individuals of other species, including red kite and buzzard, do not survive long. Such higher mortality is why the red kites released in the Black Isle in the north of Scotland increased in population size at a much slower rate than did those in the Chilterns in the same experimental phase of the project. Despite these problems, red kites in the UK now account for well over 10% of the world population. Hen harriers suffer because they are more restricted in habitat than red kites, and this habitat is the centre of most remaining illegal persecution.

How has the increase in red kite populations across Britain impacted or enhanced the countryside?

I may be biased, but I see that most people seem to agree that it is an enhancement. The fact that the red kites increased at a rate at the upper limit of our models shows how well they still fit in, after their absence of over 100 years. In general, it does not seem to be at the cost of other species, The nearest in ecology to them, buzzards, have been spreading as well, as I mentioned earlier. In a few urban areas, there have been complaints about kites diving at people. However, it seems that this has occurred only in certain town areas where some people have ignored our advice not to provide food. This leads to a range of problems for the kites and other humans. Overall, people seem to be delighted to experience such beautifully coloured birds of prey, with their amazing aerobatic ability, due to their huge wing area but relatively small, light bodies.

Chapter 12 discusses the reintroductions and recovery programmes of other species of wildlife. Are there any species that you hope will be reintroduced to the UK soon?

There is not a one-size-fits-all solution; each species needs individual study, assessment and outreach. I think that beavers have largely proved the case for themselves (with a little help from open-minded humans), and a human-led exercise for white storks seems very promising. I think that the cases are strong for pine marten (especially if, like me, one would like to see the range of red squirrels restored) and for lynx (a medium-sized cat very shy of humans, which might help address the problems that the over-population of deer pose to tree saplings). As the book indicates, there are others waiting in line, once we build further confidence with these. Britain’s wildlife populations are hugely depleted due to human actions, and we now have the methods to bring some back, if we have the will.

What do you believe are the key barriers to successful reintroductions and species restorations in the UK? How have these changed since the red kite restoration began?

The red kite restoration faced the problem in attitude that many people thought that such things could not be done, and certainly not in densely populated south-eastern England. That is now overcome. However, we must always start from the objective: reintroduction is one of a range of methods that can be deployed. It is best (and least expensive!) not to lose species in the first place. But we are still doing so, whether it be hen harriers or breeding waders (just staying in the world of birds). We need to reverse the serious habitat changes, such as excessive drainage or illegal persecution, as immediate priorities. Even for those species lost to Britain (or elsewhere) and which we wish to reintroduce, before doing so, we need to ensure that there is suitable habitat. The book gives examples of where habitat needed restoration first. One also needs to meet other internationally agreed criteria including avoiding threat to the source population.

Do you have any future projects that you can tell us about?

Most of my work nowadays is as the honorary Chairman of the charity UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum. Britain is internationally important for wildlife, but its Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are even more so. However, these are small places, with small human populations and small economies – so they are hugely underfunded. In fact, all proceeds from the sale of ‘When the Kite Builds…‘ are going in support of this charity’s work. UKOTCF encourages others to undertake conservation work in support of UKOTs, such as the marine protected zones of Pitcairn, Tristan da Cunha, Ascension and St Helena, and the restoration of South Georgia and Ascension. UKOTCF’s in-house projects, always with local partners, include both liaison work across UKOTs and projects with individual territories, such as our current project in Montserrat, ‘Adopt a Home for Wildlife’, empowering local residents and communities to take a lead in managing areas to support conservation.

When the Kite Builds…: Why and How We Restored Red Kites Across Britain was published by UK Overseas Territories Conservation Forum in February 2023 and is available from nhbs.com

In What an Owl Knows, Jennifer Ackerman provides us with a magical and captivating glimpse into the lives of owls. Covering all aspects of their biology, ecology and evolution, the book takes us on a wonderful journey into their lives and those of the people who study them. Through her prose, facts and stories, we discover just why it is that these birds have been enthralling humans for so long, and why they are so intricately interwoven into our culture, art and language.

Jennifer Ackerman is an award-winning writer who wrote for National Geographic for seven years and has written extensively for many publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American and Smithsonian Magazine. She is well known for her ornithology books including The Bird Way and The Genius of Birds, both of which celebrate the brilliance of birds through the light of new and continuing research into their biology, ecology, behaviour and cognition.

We were thrilled to chat with Jennifer about her most recent book, What An Owl Knows, as well as about owls’ reputation for wisdom, the incredible research that is shedding more light on their lives, and the mysteries that still remain.

Your most recent books, The Bird Way, The Genius of Birds and, to some extent, Birds by the Shore, have all focused on various aspects of bird behaviour and cognition. What inspired you to focus on owls for What An Owl Knows?

I wanted to focus in on a family or group of birds and take a deep dive into their biology and behaviour. I love birds, all birds. But owls? They’re unique in the bird world, night hunters with eerily quiet flight and extraordinary senses. When I started to think about writing a book about owls, they made my head sizzle with questions. What makes an owl an owl? How did owls get to be the way they are, so different from other birds? Why are they active at night? They have a reputation for wisdom, but are they in fact smart? I wanted to explore these questions and find out: What do we really know about owls? Quite a lot, it turns out. We’ve been studying them for a long time. But only lately have there been the advances necessary to solve some of the mysteries that have been around for centuries. Which made it a very good time to write this book.

Everywhere we look in the world, owls are intrinsically tied up in human art, culture and language. What do you think it is about them that captivates us so much?

It’s true, humans have been obsessed with owls for tens of thousands of years. Among the oldest examples of cave art ever discovered is an etching of an owl in Chauvet Cave in France 36,000 years ago. Now, all over the world, owls appear in stories and as symbols, sometimes of wisdom, beneficence and good fortune, and sometimes as emblems of evil and omens of death. I think it’s a combination of things that makes these birds so powerful. We see ourselves in them, with their round heads and big forward-facing eyes. Some species are cute, baby-like. But they’re also so different from us, creatures of the night, fierce in their hunting, so mysterious and uncanny. It’s this whole package of cute and brutal, familiar and strange, that makes these birds so exciting and sometimes, so troubling.

You mention near the beginning of the book that research into owls has, until relatively recently, been fairly sparse. What research techniques or tools do you think have allowed more progress to be made in recent years?

We have new “eyes” in the field—infrared cameras to see what’s going on with owls at night, radio tagging to track their movements and drones to explore remote owl habitats and peep into nests. New advances in satellite telemetry are illuminating the movements of owls over short and long distances. Remote acoustic monitoring—placing tiny audio recorders over large landscapes to listen in on owls—has helped us understand their populations and offered a window into their social lives. Nest cams have revolutionized the study of how owls raise their young, offering a 24-7 intimate look at interactions that would otherwise be impossible to observe. This technology is advancing new discoveries and also confirming observations by banders and other researchers who have been working in the field for decades.

Owls have long been associated with wisdom, although more recently, scientific studies have taught us that they aren’t as intelligent as previously imagined, especially in comparison to other birds such as corvids or parrots. Do you think this is accurate or simply a reflection of our tendency to view intelligence from a human perspective?

The science of understanding the minds of other animals is still in its infancy, and we still tend to view intelligence through our own lens. But there’s a growing awareness that there are different kinds of intelligence, different ways of knowing in the animal world that are hard to conceive of and hard to measure. On the question of owl intelligence, the science has been swinging back and forth. It’s true that owls may not be smart in the same ways that parrots and corvids are smart (and in the same ways we are smart). But they do have large brains for their body size, just as these other bird families do—and also, perhaps, ways of knowing that go beyond ours. People who train raptors used to consider owls not as bright as other birds, especially other raptors. But now that they’re beginning to understand the subtleties and complexity of owl behaviour and knowledge, they’re changing their tune. In their stories and in my conversations with other owl experts, I found plenty of good examples of intriguingly clever behaviour among owls.

What an Owl Knows delves deep into the science of owls and covers their adaptations, communication, courtship and breeding, as well as the lives of the people studying them. Following the incredible amount of research that you undertook, are there any questions or mysteries about owls that remain unanswered for you?

So many mysteries remain. We still have a lot to learn about basic things, like how many owls are out there and the details of how they’re moving around from season to season. Questions about their communication and their inner lives still abound. When one owl hoots or squawks or chitters at another, what is it really saying? How much information is packed into an owl’s vocalizations that we might be missing? When an owl is on a night hunt, what does it actually see and hear? And what is really going on in an owl’s mind?

What was the most fascinating thing you learned while researching this book?

I have to pick just one? Ok. I loved learning that burrowing owls—comical little owls that nest in the burrows of other animals like prairie dogs, woodchucks and armadillos—adorn the outside of their burrows with all sorts of weird and wonderful “treasures”: cornstalks and corncobs, bits of wood, bones, moss, swatches of fabric, bison dung, coyote scat, even pieces of concrete. Why? Why in the world would they expend energy on this sort of apparently frivolous decorating?

Finally, are you able to tell us what you are working on next?

I do have another book in the works, but I’m going to be owly about that and keep it a secret…

What an Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman is published by Oneworld Publications in July 2023 and is available from nhbs.com.

RSPB How to Photograph Garden Birds is an inspirational and practical guide to photographing birds in your own garden. Packed full of tips and tricks, the book covers equipment, composition, light and weather, as well as providing guidance on feeding birds to make your garden as attractive as possible to feathered visitors.

The second half of the book contains a range of different projects, each with details on the equipment required and the techniques you will need to use to obtain the desired shot. From using reflecting pools and catching birds in flight, there is plenty here to help you hone your skills and start capturing professional quality images.

Mark Carwardine is a zoologist and an award-winning writer, a TV and radio presenter and a bestselling author of more than 50 books. Well known for his skills as a wildlife photographer, he was selected as one of ‘The World’s 40 Most Influential Nature Photographers’ in the US’s Outdoor Photography magazine and is currently presenting and producing the BBC Wildlife Photography Masterclass on YouTube. He also runs wildlife photography holidays and workshops worldwide.

In this Q&A, we chatted with Mark about the book, about his life and journey as a photographer, and discuss some tips on making photography affordable.

You have been described as one of ‘The World’s 40 Most Influential Nature Photographers’, have chaired the judging panel of the prestigious Wildlife Competition of the Year for seven years, and are presenter and producer of the BBC’s Wildlife Photography Masterclass. With all this experience, variety and skill under your belt, what made you turn your attention to garden birds as the subject of your latest book?

It was a lockdown thing. I’ve been feeding birds in the garden for as long as I can remember (as we should all be doing – there is a lot of evidence that feeding garden birds year-round really does give them a better chance of survival). I loved watching them, and they gave me an inordinate amount of pleasure, but it was only during lockdown that I really started to photograph them. And then I got completely hooked. Garden birds make fantastic photographic subjects. Many of them are strikingly beautiful; they are readily accessible (you can even capture frame-filling images from your kitchen window); they tend to be tamer and more relaxed around people than most ‘wild’ birds out in the countryside; and they are impressively adaptable (you can move the feeders around, change the perches or add a new prop and they will often return within a few minutes). The other great advantage, of course, is there is no need for flights or hotel rooms: you barely have to leave the house.

What came first to you as a youngster, a love of nature or a love of photography? Or did they develop simultaneously?

Definitely a love of nature. I’ve been obsessed with wildlife since before I could walk and talk. The photography came in my teens. My father was a keen photographer and taught me how to print black-and-white prints in his darkroom in the loft etc, so he was the initial inspiration. I still remember saving for my first ‘proper’ camera in my mid-teens – it took me two years, working every Saturday and all school holidays in a camera shop. I’ve been very lucky to be able to make photography a big part of my work – to illustrate books, articles and lectures etc.

You mention in the book that you started out by shooting film. Do you prefer the flexibility of digital photography or are there things you miss about using older techniques and equipment?

I don’t miss anything about shooting film at all! How anyone managed to take great wildlife pictures with a 36-exposure roll of 25 or 64 ASA film – let alone with a separate light meter and a manual-focus lens – I will never know. I’m very grateful to have learnt photography using film, because you had to understand how everything worked and you had to work slowly and carefully, but my photography has certainly improved since the advent of digital. In fact, I was Chairing the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition during the transition from film to digital and watched the standard of wildlife photography grow exponentially.

I imagine a large part of being a good photographer is slowing down and really paying attention, not only to your chosen subject, but to the surroundings, weather, light and other variables. As someone who is evidently extremely productive and busy in your professional life, do you find this aspect of photography enjoyable? Or is it a necessary chore?

It’s the only time I slow down! The funny thing is that I am naturally impatient – I can’t bear wasting time. I hate sitting in traffic, waiting for a late train, being trapped in a meeting that is dragging on unnecessarily. But I can happily sit quietly for hours – no, days – waiting for an animal to appear or do something interesting. That’s a pleasure and in no way a chore. I can sit perfectly still in a hide, without moving, let alone talking, with no problem at all. Every sense is alert, your mind clears and, of course, there is always something to look at. The other thing I love is the sense of anticipation. You could wait all day and nothing happens; or, without warning, you could be surprised by one of your best wildlife sightings ever. And, of course, you do need to be patient in wildlife photography, waiting for the best light, the best pose, or whatever.

Do you think that art and photography have an important role to play in inspiring people to value or get involved with wildlife and the natural world?

I have mixed feelings about this. I do think photography can play a critically important role in inspiring people and promotion conservation. The old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is often true – meaning that complex ideas can be conveyed in a single image. There are many examples of one picture spurring a massive campaign and, ultimately, inspiring significant change. On the wall behind me in my office is a signed photograph by Commander Frank Borman, taken during Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon. It’s called ‘Earthrise’ and shows our tiny blue planet hanging in space, as viewed across the surface of the moon. It’s credited with kick-starting the environmental movement in the late 1960s. There are some inspiring examples in nature photography, too. Ansel Adams famously used his photographs to help create Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. And look at the work of the International League of Conservation Photographers. But I have mixed feelings because many photographers these days claim to be ‘helping conservation’ simply by taking pictures of wildlife and wild places. It doesn’t work like that – you have to do something as well.

In the current financial climate, the cost of equipment might put many people off taking up photography as a hobby. I liked that you covered the use of smartphones in your book, as this is something that almost everybody has access to. What would be your top recommendation for an inexpensive accessory that could be used with a Smartphone for photographing garden birds?

Yes, it’s true. Some of the best long lenses these days cost as much as a small family car! There’s a whole chapter in the book about photographing garden birds with a smartphone. One of the challenges with smartphone photography is shooting frame-filling pictures – getting close enough to your subjects. I’d recommend buying a really inexpensive little gadget called a shutter release, or shutter remote. This communicates with your phone via Bluetooth. Once you’ve paired it, you simply tap the button on the remote to take a picture. Then all you do is place the phone near your carefully positioned photographic perch – or wherever you think the birds might land. Sit in the kitchen with a coffee or a beer, using binoculars to see the back of the phone clearly enough to judge when a bird comes into view, and fire away to your heart’s content. It works amazingly well.

What’s in store for you next? Do you have plans for further books?

Actually, I’m working on another photographic book. For the past 30 years, I’ve spent a month or two most winters in Baja California, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, running whale watching tours, doing research and filming. It’s arguably the best place in the world for whale watching. So I am compiling a book of my favourite photographs from those 30 years, called ‘Baja California: Realm of the Great Whales’. I just have a few hundred thousand more images to go through, and I’ll be ready to make the final selection!

RSPB How to Photograph Garden Birds by Mark Carwardine was published in January 2023. It is published by Bloomsbury Publishing and available from nhbs.com.