I have just returned from a little over two weeks in Scilly on my usual family summer trip to the islands. Over the past couple of years, I have been lucky to visit a few times during spring and autumn, when migration generally makes for much more exciting birding than in the middle of summer. Despite this, the trip ended up producing the highest number of bird species I have ever recorded during a summer visit to Scilly, including 6 species added to my Scilly list (which was a real surprise).

The first three days of my trip 13th – 16th July were spent on Bryher with my parents, and I enjoyed having the chance to bird the island thoroughly over this time. Bryher is very small, only around 1.5 miles long and 0.5 miles at its widest, meaning it is possible to explore pretty much every corner in detail. After three days of putting quite a bit of time into covering the island each day, it felt unlikely that there could have been many species present that I had managed to ‘miss’. In fact, a lot of the good habitat for birds is in an even smaller corner on the west side of Bryher, which is where I spent the bulk of the three days birding. Over this time, I recorded a few shorebird species on Stinking Porth, including Oystercatcher, Whimbrel, Common Sandpiper, Dunlin, Greenshank, Redshank and Common Ringed Plover (including once instance of a young Common Ringed Plover being taken by gulls).

As well as Stinking Porth, I was regularly visiting the fields adjacent to Popplestone Bay (famous for being the site where a Blackburnian Warbler was found in 2022, only the fourth ever recorded in Britain but the first to be widely twitchable). In this area, I had an adult Cuckoo. This was rather late for adults to still be in the UK, I imagine a lingerer from the mainland rather than one that bred in Scilly.

Additionally, on a day where I spent much time taking photographs of the hundreds of Barn Swallow feeding recently-fledged young, I had a Tree Pipit flight-calling overhead. This was my first Scilly tick of the trip and, likely an early autumn migrant already beginning its journey south, was one of those birds I was very lucky to pick up simply through spending so much time birding such a small area. It was over in a matter of seconds and could very easily have gone completely unnoticed were I not in the right place at the right time.

​Popplestone fields were also excellent for other small passerines that were either recently fledged or adults feeding young, with a smattering of Stonechat, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler. I also enjoyed trying to get a better sense of the butterfly diversity across this part of the island, while improving my identification of butterflies, moths and other insects more generally. Red Admirals were particularly numerous, perhaps unsurprisingly for such a strongly migratory species, with butterflies moving north from continental Europe and North Africa into Britain through the spring and summer, before later generations make the return journey south again in autumn.

After the three days on Bryher, I had recorded 38 bird species and was moving to Tresco for two more weeks in Scilly. Upon arriving and walking around the island, it was striking to see just how much Storm Goretti from earlier in the year had impacted the wild spaces on the island, with many of the iconic 200-year old Scot’s Pines now missing. I had an excellent start to the first full day on Tresco with a trip to the Swarovski hide on Tresco’s Great Pool. I was surprised by not one but three Scilly ticks: a Lapwing, Ruff and Little Grebe. None of these had really been on my radar as a potential Scilly tick during a mid-July trip, with Lapwing being a bird associated more with autumn and winter on the islands, and Ruff predominantly a passage migrant whose numbers build later in the summer. The Ruff appeared to be a male moulting out of its breeding plumage, likely already on its southward migration after breeding. This makes sense given it remained for just one more day before presumably continuing on its journey, while the Lapwing was more content on Tresco and would remain on the island for the entirety of my two-week stay.

​Around Great Pool, there were also very good numbers of Willow Warbler and Reed Warbler. This was the case for my entire holiday in Scilly, and a lot of my time birding was spent taking photos of these birds as I hoped for a rarer warbler to crop up!

Elsewhere on my first day, I had five Pochard on Abbey Pool, including three young(ish) birds. Pochard are only sporadic breeders on Scilly, making it particularly nice to see evidence of another successful breeding attempt on Tresco. The island does appear to be something of a Scillonian stronghold for the species, however, with broods recorded on the Great and Abbey Pools in a number of recent years.
 
I then walked along the south beaches, which is one of my absolute favourite birding spots to spend some time at. It was actually quiet on the wader-front during this day’s visit, though there were very good numbers of Great Black-backed Gull (78), Black-headed Gull (51) and Mediterranean Gull (32). The latter is particularly interesting, as Med Gulls were once a genuinely scarcity on the islands: as recently as 2006, a count of just seven represented the highest ever recorded on Scilly. The day was then rounded off well with a Hobby that drifted over Tresco in the late afternoon.

​On 20th July, I spent the day on St Marys before going on the Scilly Pelagics trip in the evening. I was lucky that on this day a juvenile Wood Sandpiper was found at Standing Stones Field, which I was a five minute walk away from due to being at the hide in Lower Moors. It was a very obliging bird, and was a great addition to my Scilly list. Beyond this, I had good numbers of Reed Warbler around Porth Hellick and Higher Moors, as well as a Sedge Warbler and Cetti’s Warbler. Walking back towards Hugh Town, I also had a juvenile but independent Cuckoo near Giants Castle.

The pelagic trip took us right into The Atlantic 3.5 miles south-west of Bishops Rock Lighthouse, which itself is over 4 miles from the nearest inhabited island. On this trip, I had 1 Puffin, 2 Razorbill, 1 Guillemot, 2 Common Tern, 8 Wilson’s Storm Petrel (total for others on the trip was 12), 20 European Storm Petrel, 4 Fulmar, 1 Great Shearwater, 250 Manx Shearwater and 60 Gannet. As usual, this was an excellent trip which I highly recommend to any birder (so long as they can deal with the choppy conditions for five hours!).

​Over the next couple of days on Tresco, I normally spent a similar structure to the day of checking both the pools and walking along the south beaches. Across this time, I was fairly regularly seeing the aforementioned wading species (with a high count of 11 Greenshank) in addition to 2-3 Green Sandpiper and a single Snipe. On a non-avian front, I also was regularly seeing Red-veined Darter, Black-tailed Skimmer, Blue Emperor and Clouded Yellow Butterfly.

​There were also opportunities for birding beyond Tresco, and one of the highlights of the trip came unexpectedly. We were on a family boat trip in our small 16ft motor boat when we came across a family group of 6 Shelduck (a breeding pair with 4 young ducklings) on the sea just east of Samson. We kept our distance, but this isn’t a species I’ve seen in Scilly at this time of year! Although Shelduck do occasionally breed on the islands, successful breeding appears to be fairly irregular, so it was great to find evidence of a successful breeding attempt in Scilly in 2026.

​On 22nd July I finally had a very fruitful day along the south beaches on Tresco, with 55 Oystercatcher, 12 Common Ringed Plover, 7 Whimbrel, 14 Turnstone, 122 Sanderling, 7 Rock Pipit and good numbers of gull species (including a single Common Gull, which is surprisingly scarce in Scilly, and in the evening a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull). Also, just beyond the sand banks, I had a flock of 22 Greenfinch, not notable for any particular reason other than that I have not seen as large a flock as this in Scilly before!

​On 24th July, we took a guided wildlife boat trip around the Eastern Isles and the south side of St Marys and St Agnes. Here, we were treated to a few Common Dolphins and many Atlantic Grey Seals, for which Scilly is a particularly important stronghold, supporting more than 60% of all pups born annually in south-west England. Additionally, I had my first Black-legged Kittiwake of the trip.

​There was a noticeable change in the weather on 25th July. The previous 12 days had been remarkably warm and mostly clear, with winds generally coming from the east at first before settling into a prolonged northerly to north-easterly airflow. On the 25th, however, the wind swung round to the northwest and strengthened slightly. This change appeared to bring more pelagic seabirds within sight of land, and a 30-minute seawatch from the north end of Tresco produced 1 Sooty Shearwater and around 450 Manx Shearwaters, the majority moving west.
 
Over the remaining days, the weather cleared up again. The morning of the 27th July brought with it an adult Water Rail at Great Pool on Tresco, on the 28th I was treated to another Hobby hunting over Tresco, and the 29th saw a Knot on the south beaches of Tresco.

On my final day, we headed to St Marys in the morning to walk around the island a little before our Scillonian III sailing back to Penzance (the last time I will ever sail on this boat before the Scillonian IV starts sailing next year!). I was lucky to have a very vocal Crossbill near Carreg Dhu Gardens on St Marys (a late and final Scilly tick), and the crossing back to the mainland was reasonably quiet, with 60 Manx Shearwater and 100 Gannet.
 
As mentioned at the beginning, with a total of 86 bird species, this became my most fruitful trip to Scilly during the summer months, and it was great to add six species to my Scilly list, taking it now to 166 species. The full eBird trip report can be found here.

Post-Zambia, I had a great 3 days in Suffolk during a brilliant time of year to visit for spring passage, with waders moving through and the first summer migrants arriving on territory.
 
Highlights included plenty of Skylark in full song, a fair number of passage Wheatear, and Dartford Warbler at Dunwich Heath. A real highlight was the Zitting Cisticola at Walberswick, while Minsmere was particularly lively with abundant Sand Martin, a singing Nightingale, hundreds of Sandwich Tern, and a Spotted Redshank.
 
Over the three days I was very happy to amass 101 species, with the full trip report found here.

This Easter I spent a week travelling in Zambia with a group of friends, which was an amazing opportunity to see some entirely new wildlife compared to that which I have seen in the past. Having never travelled to Africa or south of the equator before, the diversity of new bird species was pretty overwhelming.
 
The journey began with a connecting flight via Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. Despite feeling very groggy at 5.30am after the 9-hour stint, I was so eager by the prospect of the many new species that this trip would provide that I wanted to see if there were any lifers visible from the airport windows. It was here I saw my first Pied Crow and African Pied Wagtail (two species that I would see many more of across the trip), as well as a smattering of African Palm Swifts.
 
Upon our arrival in Lusaka on Friday morning, we were all very tired and birding wasn’t the top priority. We spent a large chunk of the day driving south to Kiambi Lodge where we would be spending the next few days. While the extreme tiredness was setting in on this journey, the drive wasn’t devoid of birdlife. In fact, 5 hours into our long journey we were treated to a Spotted Eagle Owl toying with a snake directly on the road in front of us, lit up by the headlights.

​Our three nights at Kiambi Lodge were absolute paradise for someone interested in wildlife, with birds seemingly everywhere you looked or listened. That said, as a first-time visitor to Africa, this abundance of species came with challenges. Almost everything was unfamiliar: songs, calls, silhouettes, behaviours etc. As such, confidently identifying species proved difficult and at times frustrating (especially when a bird only offered a fleeting glimpse before disappearing).
 
This was most apparent on my first morning walk alone, when I was suddenly surrounded by entirely new sounds and movements. However, over the following days patterns began to emerge, which was helped enormously by local guides, online and physical resources, and my friend who spends a lot of time working in Zambia. The more common local species gradually became more familiar. Following that first walk, and after spending some time with a field guide, I could say with confidence that I had a Village Indigobird, a Variable Sunbird, numerous singing Laughing Doves, and a Marsh Warbler in full song (the song was similar to the Reed and Sedge Warblers I know from the UK, but more complex and musical), though it’s hard not to wonder how many other species were present that I failed to identify!
 
Later in the morning, we visited a local banana farm, where I saw a number of new species among which included Common Waxbill, Bronze Mannikin, Southern Cordonbleu (a favourite of mine), Common Bulbul, Familiar Chat and Red-billed Quelea (which unknown to me at the time became the most common species across the trip).

​The day continued with a fantastic boat ride on the Lower Zambezi River, where we were treated to our first good views of the African Fish Eagle, Zambia’s national bird. One thing that struck me was its call, sounding halfway between the cry of a ‘typical‘ bird of prey and a coastal gull (which makes sense, given it’s a fish-eating eagle, an eagle that’s spent a bit too long hanging around with gulls?!). On the boat ride, we also had our first encounters with a colony of White-fronted Bee-eater, as well as Little Bee-eater and a single European Bee-eater (one of the few species across the entire trip that I’ve seen in the UK before). The kingfisher diversity was also striking, with numerous Pied Kingfisher and a single Brown-hooded Kingfisher (though I would see a number of other kingfisher species across the trip). On the banks of the river we also saw various Blacksmith Lapwing, White-crowned Lapwing, Water Thick-knee, Hadada Ibis, and singles of Goliath Heron and Hamerkop. As well as the avian diversity, we were treated to likely over 50 hippos which were gathered in large bloats (apparently the collective noun for hippos…) that were impressive but slightly intimidating, particularly when the guide cut the engine and we were left drifting silently among them.

​On Easter Sunday 5th April, I perhaps had the most enjoyable day of the trip during a full-day game drive in the Lower Zambezi National Park. We were treated to practically every mammal species that you are likely to see in the park (including Elephants, Wild Dogs, Warthogs, Chacma Baboons, Kudu, Buffalos, Waterbucks, Impala, Zebras and even an elusive Leopard), and the bird life was fantastic. The day brought with it 74 bird species – too many to list here but there were a few highlights.

Very early during the drive we had excellent views of an immature Martial Eagle, a hugely powerful bird of prey which perched perfectly in the morning sun for us to observe it for a few minutes before bounding away. A little further into the park we were lucky to see 3 Southern Ground-hornbill which were feeding away on the small prey in the grass, as well as a small flock of Helmeted Guineafowl, 2 White-faced Whistling Duck and a Grey Go-away-bird (possibly my favourite species name of the trip). We also had great views of a Red-backed Shrike (a species I’ve now seen in Zambia, Corfu and Scilly).

​As previously mentioned, the kingfisher diversity on the game drive was amazing, adding Woodland Kingfisher and Grey-headed Kingfisher to the trip list. A real highlight of the game drive was also stumbling upon a flock of vultures feeding on what may have been the leftovers of a successful wild dog hunt. In just one confined area, there were 4 species of vulture, 3 of which are critically endangered: White-headed vulture, Lappet-faced Vulture, Hooded Vulture and White-backed Vulture.

​In the same area, we had our first Eastern Paradise Whydah flying overhead, a bizarre bird whose males grow extraordinarily long tail streamers. These tails are a classic product of sexual selection: females preferentially choose males with longer, more elaborate tails, not because the tail itself is advantageous, but because it acts as an honest signal of underlying genetic quality (with beneficial genes linked to or indicated by those controlling tail length), driving their evolution even though they impose clear costs to flight and increase predation risk. It’s a striking example of how sexual selection can favour traits that would be selected against under natural selection alone. This was particularly obvious when watching them in their clearly awkward and laboured flight. Their flight looked so inefficient it prompted a friend to point out that it looked like the bird from Flappy Bird. Outside the breeding season, males shed these elongated feathers, making flight far more efficient again.

A lunch stop near on the banks of the Lower Zambezi presented some familiar wader species which can be seen in Europe, including Common Sandpiper, Greenshank and Ruff, as well as the very unfamiliar sight of Saddle-billed Stork. Just before, we also had very nice views of a Squacco Heron, one of my absolute favourite species of the trip (though I’m not sure why…). Lunch was cut a little short however by the appearance of a buffalo, which prompted us all to rapidly get back in the Jeep due to their propensity to charge.

​Towards the end of the drive, we spotted a beautiful male Kudu. While in itself this is a highly impressive and imposing antelope species, I was mainly drawn by the fact that it clearly had a Red-billed Oxpecker feeding on its back. This is an ecological interaction that comes up when teaching school biology. Oxpeckers are a particularly useful example when discussing feeding relationships because they don’t fit neatly into a single trophic level. While they remove ticks from grazing animals and act as “cleaners”, they also feed on blood and other host-derived resources, meaning the relationship can shift between mutualism and parasitism. This makes them a nice, real-world case study for the complexity of food webs.

A final highlight of this day was seeing the many Cattle Egret. This is a species I am familiar with, seeing various flocks locally to Oxford, as well as a flock that frequent The Boathouse in Cornwall where I have spent a few days in the last two Autumns. However, my experience with them on this drive was very different given the fact that they were flocked close to a pair of mating Elephants!

​Monday 6th April was our final day at Kiambi. We took another morning boat trip which supplied a few more new species for the trip list (as well as lifers for me). This included an African Darter and the aptly named Cut-throat. A highlight were some nice views of a Malachite Kingfisher, which was both the smallest and most delicate kingfisher species seen so far, as well as being most similar to the species I am used to seeing in the UK, as well as a Little Heron​.

​We left Kiambi and proceeded on the long drive to Lake Kariba, where we had a fantastic 2 nights aboard a houseboat. The lake itself is man-made, created in the late 1950s when the Zambezi River was dammed to form the Kariba Dam, at the time one of the largest engineering projects in the world. Today, the dam remains a crucial source of hydroelectric power, supplying around a third of Zambia’s electricity.

The change in habitat brought a change in species, with my first sightings of White-winged Black Tern and Grey-hooded Gull. The latter of these is the only regular gull species in Zambia, which is funny as I consider gulls to be one of the more numerous taxa of bird in the UK , and it wasn’t long ago that I was in Niagara Falls, often cited as one of the best inland locations for gull diversity, where double-digit species can be seen in a single visit. Lake Kariba was also the place to be for African Fish Eagle, where I counted 12 individuals along our ride from Siavonga to Lotri Bay.

​We docked on a very small island near Lotri Bay and spent the evening and following morning around this area. Though of course very different to the UK, it struck me as functioning in a surprisingly similar way to islands like the Isles of Scilly, where I’ve spent a lot of time birding. Small patches of land acting as natural stopover points, concentrating a high diversity of birds as they cross large expanses of water and pause to refuel. Species highlights from this area included Tawny-flanked Prinia, Lilac-breasted Roller, Trumpeter Hornbill, Reed Cormorant, Black-collared Barbet, Rattling Cisticola, White-bellied Sunbird, Southern Red Bishop, Red-winged Starling, Brown-necked Parrot (which took a while to pin down even though the calls were heard a number of times) and a wonderful Red-chested Cuckoo.

Wednesday 8th April was my birthday, which started with a drive back from Siavonga at Lake Kariba towards Lusaka (during which we had brief views of a Black-winged Kite). We had lunch at the Lilayi Lodge, a private reserve where we were treated to a Swainson’s Spurfowl, African Golden Oriole and a flock of White-crested Helmetshrike.

I left Zambia on 9th April, with one final addition to the trip list coming somewhat unexpectedly, a Cape Wagtail seen on the airfield during my layover in Johannesburg Airport (an understated end to a week that had been anything but!). The trip was without doubt the most intense period of birding I’ve experienced in terms of the number of new species encountered in such a short space of time. In total, I recorded 137 species, 116 of which were lifers. Full eBird trip report can be found here.

I have published a fourth chapter from my PhD thesis. This paper examined whether birds of different ages tend to occupy different areas within a breeding population, and whether older individuals consistently breed in higher-quality territories. If age is spatially structured in this way, then variation in the age of breeders could potentially help explain why some areas of a population are consistently more productive than others.

Using long-term data from a wild great tit population, we compared the spatial distribution of breeder age with measures of territory quality and reproductive success. We found some evidence that age was associated with aspects of territory quality, but overall there was surprisingly little spatial structure in age. In other words, older and younger birds were not strongly clustered into different parts of the population.

This contrasted with both territory quality and reproductive output, which showed much clearer spatial patterns and were more consistent between years. One likely explanation is strong breeding-site fidelity among birds that survive from one year to the next, but also high levels of mortality and immigration. This creates considerable turnover in who occupies each territory and prevents stable spatial patterns in age from developing.
​
The results suggest that differences in habitat quality are likely to be more important than the age of breeders in generating persistent spatial variation in reproductive success. More broadly, the study provides a framework for investigating spatial age structure in other species, and we predict that stronger patterns may emerge in longer-lived animals where individuals have more opportunity to accumulate in particular areas over time. The paper can be found here.

I have recently started a full time teaching job in London, which alongside its many pleasures includes the fact that there is a 2 week October half-term which nicely coincides with a great time to visit Scilly for birding.
 
The trip started on a slightly disappointing note when the Scillonian’s crossing was cancelled due to rough sea conditions. However, I was very lucky to be down in Cornwall anyway with my parents so managed a day of birding on the mainland. I had an unsuccessful twitch of the Steppe Grey Shrike (seen by one observer the day before) near Mullion, but did add 3 species to my Cornish list: a Reed bunting at Gunwalloe, a few Great Crested Grebe on The Loe, and a Tawny Owl at Mawgan Creek. These all showcase my bias towards visiting Scilly, given that they are all fairly common birds on the mainland but reasonably rare on the islands. Additionally, it was my second time staying at The Boathouse in Mawgan, a beautiful spot nestled in woodland but also on an extreme tidal area of the Helford. Despite only spending 6 nights there total, my life list for The Boathouse is only ten below the home I grew up in in Buckinghamshire and have lived in for years (56 vs 66)!

​When it came to the delayed Scillonian sailing on Tuesday 21st October, the crossing was fairly quiet on the Scilly-side of Wolf Rock, save for one Arctic Skua (a Scilly tick for me) and good numbers of approximately 70 Guillemot. Upon arriving on St Marys, I caught up with the many Black Redstart that are on the islands this time of year, with eight on Porth Mellon (on one of the days, it seemed likely that there were 25+ across St Marys alone). On a walk around the island, news broke that there was a Red-backed Shrike on Porthloo Lane, which I twitched with a number of other birders. Amazingly, it has just hunted a Scilly shrew which was skewered next to it. Following this, I walked to Telegraph where there was one Yellow-browed warbler calling as well as a Little Bunting in one of the nearby clover fields. Although it was actually seen best when flushed to the tracks leading to the cottages.

​On Wednesday 22nd October, I got up just before sunrise in hope to see the MEGA Eyebrowed Thrush that was seen when I was sailing the previous day (but not since I arrived on the islands). In low light, I arrived in the Porthloo Duck Pond area and began scanning the various areas of leaf litter. Andrew Allen, one other birder on the islands, was also on the lookout, when he spotted it feeding at the base of some trees. Together, we had 5–10 minutes of watching it before we lost sight. I bird flew from the trees above and headed NE calling like a redwing, so I assumed this was the EB thrush. Although the viewing time was limited (and I didn’t get any photos), it was still a thrill to see it! After breakfast, I headed to the harbour to catch a boat to Tresco for the day, before which I found a Common Scoter in the bay from Tregarthens. Upon arriving at Carn Near, Tresco, the area south of the heliport was rife with Stonechat, and I had my first Scilly Fieldfare (although there were many more to come across the trip!). I walked to the south beaches of Tresco, one of my favourite spots on all the islands that always has good numbers of shorebirds. Sanderling numbers were fairly low, with just 13, along with 30 Turnstone, 30 Oystercatcher, 18 Common Ringed Plover, 4 Whimbrel and 2 Bar-tailed godwit. It was striking just how few Wheatear there were on the trip as a whole – the 3 I had along this walk were among only 4 in total.

​I then had a good tramp around the Abbey and Great Pools, adding Redpoll to my Scilly list as 3 flew over (along with 16 Siskin). Duck numbers were good on Great Pool, with 2 Shoveler, 68 Gadwall (my highest count on Scilly), 5 Wigeon, 28 Mallard, 14 Teal and 1 Pochard. After lunch, I walked along Back Lane where I had my first Golden Plover of the trip.

​Thursday 23rd October was challenging conditions for birding, with high winds and many showers. I decided to stick on St Marys, which turned out to be a good decision as I added 3 species to my Scilly list. In the morning, a Jack Snipe was flushed along the path through Lower Moors, as well as seeing one Lesser Whitethroat. I decided to walk around Peninnis via the farm trail and Old Town Bay (where the Great White Egret that had been making its way around the islands was fishing). I bumped into Will Wagstaff, who had just found a Water Pipit near Peninnis, which I twitched briefly as it foraged in a mixed pipit and finch flock. On Peninnis itself, I came across an unusual snipe. It was roosting relatively openly and in drier patches and didn’t flush as easily as other Common Snipe. Additionally, it had a less zigzagging flight pattern, and didn’t call when flushed. However, no diagnostic features for any vagrant species were ascertained.

​News of an Ortolan Bunting on Porth Hellick meant I crossed the island (via Higher Moors where the Great White Egret had now relocated). I spent roughly half an hour scanning the mixed finch flock on the beach with no avail, though I did get nice views of two Brambling. As the light began to fade, I walked back to my BnB via Holy Vale, where a Woodcock was roosting.

My day on Bryher on the 24th October was reasonably quiet. There were good numbers of Chiffchaff on the Eastern side, presumably blown through the island via the strong westerlies, but no hoped for American vagrants. Also, one Ring Ouzel on Stinking Porth, but the highlight of the day was ironically on the boat trip back to St Marys, when a Peregrine showed very well flying over Tresco Channel.
 
The story was similar again on St Martins on 25th October, with good numbers of Chiffchaff, but nothing else too exciting. Chapel Down did bring me my first Raven of the trip, as well as 7 Skylark.

​On Sunday 26th, my final full day, the clocks changed allowing for an earlier start. I walked a decent distance around St Marys in the morning, briefly seeing (but clearly hearing) the Lapland Bunting which was in the Porth Hellick area. After my morning tramp, I decided to catch a boat to St Agnes, but not before trying to see the 2 Spoonbill that have taken up residency off Samson. These two individuals were here last year as well, but I have consistently failed to add them to my Scilly list due to bad weather conditions and never getting a boat close enough to the islands. However, the light was good and visibility clear on Sunday morning, so I got out my scope at The Garrison and managed to view one individual distantly. It’s lucky that they are such a distinctive species!
 
I had a great day on St Agnes, twitching the American Buff-bellied Pipit with a number of other birders, as well as being extremely lucky with a flyover of 2 White-fronted Geese (a very difficult bird to catch up with on Scilly). There were very good numbers of Common Ringed Plover on Periglis, with 19 in total along with 2 Curlew and various other shorebirds.

​Despite the earlier sunset, I quickly made my way to Porth Hellick when landing back at St Marys to twitch the Bluethroat, which I just about got some good views of before the light completely went (another Scilly tick!).

On my final morning, I spent a decent amount of time trying to pin down the Hoopoe that had been spotted in various sites around the Garrison. Eventually, I viewed it well feeding at the campsite – I was glad to catch up with it before boarding the Scillonian. The sailing back to Penzance was much more productive than the outward journey, with 1 Great Skua, 3 Puffin, 18 Guillemot, 180 Kittiwake, 1 Fulmar, 11 Great Shearwater, 2 Sooty Shearwater and 7 Manx Shearwater (all west of Wolf Rock). There was also a great moment where a Merlin bombed towards the ship, briefly landing on one of the masts before continuing onwards towards Scilly!

The trip was very much a success. I had 6 lifers, added 8 species to my British list, 16 species to my Scilly list, and 17 to my 2025 World list. Full eBird trip report (for Scilly specifically) can be found here.

I have just returned from another cracking week in Scilly. Last year was my first time visiting during the spring, and despite spending every summer in Scilly, I was surprised at how unfamiliar much of the islands’ flora and fauna was in April. Landscapes are transformed as the relatively dull heathy areas in the summer pop out with waves of bright yellow gorse flowers, while the spring soundscapes around reeds and hedgerows are elevated with the song of migrating warblers. While I was expecting this seasonal change a little more this time round, the trip still brought some great surprises.
 
The week started with challenging birding conditions with heavy rain on the Scillonian, making it difficult to pick much out on the sea other than some Manx Shearwater, with approximately 160 along the entire journey (they always seem much more numerous closer to Land’s End than the Scilly-side). The wind and rain persisted over the first couple of days on Bryher, which in combination with me missing Scilly’s Hoopoe-influx during the week prior to my trip was a bit of a downer. However, while the birding was difficult, it was not impossible, with a Great White Egret at Popplestones and Great Northern Diver at Great Porth. Also, the first signs of Wheatear and Ring Ouzel. In the case of these latter two species, my experience was very different compared to April 2024. This year, Wheatears were very thin on the ground, with only 15 over the entire trip, whereas last year there were as many as 20 on single short walks. In contrast, last year I only had a single male Ring Ouzel, but this year I saw at least 6 individuals (that’s twice as many Rouzels as Blue Tits!).

With the arrival of the rest of my family, we moved islands to Tresco. I was excited about this as this island has two large pools which have historically drawn in some interesting birds. However, the water levels were very high this year, with a distinct lack of muddy fringes to tempt down any waders. Instead, I spent most mornings on Tresco’s south beaches. This is one of my absolute favourite places in the world, as the rising tide pushes the shorebirds inland under the morning sun. Numbers were fairly good this year, with one morning producing 22 Oystercatcher, 18 Common Ringed Plover, 19 Ruddy Turnstone and 72 Sanderling. A real highlight was discovering that one of these Sanderlings was colour-ringed. Upon requesting the details, I found out that it was 5-years-old, first ringed in Pontevedra, Spain in October 2020 and seen once since in Syddanmark, Denmark in July 2022 (a distance of approximately 2000km!).

Over the next few days on Tresco, the trip list began to level out, although during a 45 minute sea-watch I had my first Scilly Black-throated Diver off St Helens. The birding all seemed to calm down a little, but that changed when on my final full day there was a report of a Shore Lark on St Mary’s. This is a very scarce bird on Scilly, with this individual being only the 13th ever and the first since 2009. I hoped that it would stick around until the following day, and that I would have time to catch up with it before my Scillonian departure. I hitched a lift on one of the airport taxis and walked to Porthellick Down, where it was most recently seen. After a challenging 30 minutes with a suspected view as it flitted past and down to the rocky shore, it finally showed well on the coastal path. A really smart male of North European race, it continued feeding, associating with a Wheatear before being flushed by a dog walker. Speaking to other birders, I’m always aware of comparatively just how small my Scilly list is (144 species, with many others around the 250-300 mark). However, it's these trips in Autumn and Spring that will slowly bring my list up as unusual finds such as the Shore Lark drop down to the islands. All the more reason to visit outside of the summer season!

I ended the trip with 83 species (3 less than last April), but with 5 species added to my Scilly life list and 21 to my UK Year List. Full ebird trip report can be found here.

I have published a third chapter from my PhD thesis which I defended and passed last Autumn. This paper investigated how the age structure of great tit populations varies across Europe, and particularly whether populations separated by large distances tend to become younger or older at the same time. This kind of synchrony is well studied for changes in population size, but much less is known about whether the demographic composition of populations also fluctuates together across space.
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We brought together long-term breeding data from 32 great tit populations across Europe, spanning 67 years and including more than 130,000 birds. Across these populations, we found that years with larger clutch sizes, colder winters and larger beech crops tended to be followed by younger breeding populations, largely because of differences in the recruitment of young birds into the population.

We also found clear spatial synchrony in population age structure. Populations closer together tended to show more similar changes from year to year, with this synchrony remaining detectable over distances of around 650 km. Interestingly, although several environmental variables were associated with whether populations became younger or older, most did not appear to explain the geographical scale over which these changes were synchronised. Beech masting was the main exception.

The results show that changes in the age structure of animal populations can be coordinated over surprisingly large geographical scales, while also highlighting how local ecological and density-dependent processes can alter the way populations respond to broader environmental variation.

This was also a particularly enjoyable paper to develop because it involved collaborating with many other researchers working on long-term great tit populations across Europe. Bringing together datasets and expertise from so many different study systems was a very different experience from my other papers, which have generally been developed with collaborators within my immediate research group, so it was great fun to lead! The paper can be found here.

At the start of last year, I shared a blog post of my birding highlights from 2023, a year that stood out as my best yet. I recorded 21 more species than the year before, including 36 species I had never seen previously. I noted that this was likely due to two main factors: dedicating more time to exploring local patches and taking a few trips to new destinations. Looking back on 2024, it’s clear that the latter underscores just how much global bird diversity there is to offer.
 
Across 2024, I saw 359 species, almost doubling the number I saw the previous year and adding a whopping 161 lifers. Over the past few years, I haven’t travelled internationally all that much, but in 2024 I had the opportunity to visit Italy, Switzerland, France, Greece, Canada and the US (as well as visiting Scilly in the spring and autumn alongside my usual summer trip). These trips, particularly to north-east America, were the driving force behind my bird numbers. The dramatic increase in my bird life list highlights the importance of evolutionary history and species divergence in shaping global avian diversity. Travelling across the Atlantic to North America, for example, introduced me to species that have evolved independently from those in Europe due to millions of years of geographic separation. Each region has its unique assemblage of birds, shaped by distinct habitats, climates and evolutionary paths, which makes exploring new areas such a rewarding experience for birders.
 
It was hard to whittle down all my birding experience from this year into a Top 10, but I have done my best based on the initial excitement I had in the moment. It’s striking just how much travel has influenced this list – while last year’s highlights were all from the UK, this year half of my Top 10 occurred abroad.
 
Top 10 2024 bird moments:

1. A Black Kite drifted across Tresco on 24th April during an early morning visit to some dried up floods, mobbed by gulls, and shortly followed by a Red Kite and a female Marsh Harrier - all within 30 minutes. A remarkable trio of raptors I’d never seen on Scilly before.
2. I briefly caught glimpse of an unknown bird which seemed a mix of thrush, nuthatch and wagtail on 23rd September at Presque Isle State Park, Erie, Pennsylvania. On consulting my National Geographic bird guide, I identified it as a Northern Waterthrush - one of my favourite lifers during my travels in north-east America.
3. On a walk along Buzza Hill, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, on the 27th October I caught sight of a bird I’m only used to seeing in the spring – a Lesser Whitethroat. I managed some photos and pinned down a few characteristics that classed it as an eastern-form of the species, circulating the news on the Scilly Birding WhatsApp group. It’s easy to get swept away with the many other birders finding rare birds at this time of year on the islands, but this was self-found and really made me feel I was contributing to the birding community.
4. In a Gerald Durrell-esque afternoon on the 23rd August, I watched from the balcony of a holiday apartment as a few Eastern Olivaceous Warblers hopped between the trees in an olive grove in Paxos near Corfu.
5. On 23rd April, a male Ring Ouzel on the north end of Tresco caught my attention with its ‘chacking’ call, before suddenly appearing at the foot of the ruined King Charles Castle.
6. Watching the Black Skimmers tracing the water’s surface at sunrise on Cape May Beach on 9th October was a real highlight of my North American trip. Despite their size and unusual bills, they were very elegant in their tight flock, and contrasted the hundreds of royal terns streaming through the beach in the opposite direction.
7. During my first birding walk of the North American trip, I heard a loud rattle from one of the ponds on the Toronto Islands on 16th September. It was a Belted Kingfisher, even brighter in colour and much larger in size compared to the kingfishers I’m used to in the UK, and was the start of the many more 'tropical' birds I would see over the next month.
8. Twitching a pair of Serins on 24th October was a truly Scillonian birding experience. Among tens of other birdwatchers with their binoculars, scopes and huge camera lenses, we waited for over an hour, scanning the various finches that flitted up and down in an unceremonious pumpkin field behind a fire station. Finally, we were able to pick out a flash of yellow and the serins posed on a dead sunflower for a little while for us all to admire.
9. Finding a Little Owl snoozing unnoticed in Peckham Rye on 21st June was slightly surreal, as people passed by on their lunch break, oblivious to the bird.
10. During my first ever time skiing, it was obvious that the mountains around Cervinia were pretty desolate of bird life, apart from the ever squeaking Alpine Choughs. But during lunch on 22nd January, a flock of White-winged Snowfinch flitted down to a table, much as sparrows do at picnic benches in the UK. It was quite odd seeing a sign of birdlife amid the miles and miles of unbroken mountains and snow.

I was recently reminded in conversation of a topic in biology that I find fascinating, not only due to the sometimes described ‘paradoxical’ evolutionary nature of its existence, but also due to the potential biases that have surrounded its study for centuries.
 
Across the vast diversity of the animal kingdom, one behaviour has often baffled biologists: same-sex sexual behaviour. This is not the same as a homosexual orientation in humans, which more closely aligns with what is referred to as same-sex sexual preference (i.e. when individuals are more likely to undergo sexual behaviour with individuals of the same sex as themselves when different-sex partners are available). From penguins to primates, and even insects, same-sex sexual behaviour is common across species (for a great book on this, see Joan Roughgarden’s “Evolution’s Rainbow”, or Bailey and Zuk’s shorter review paper). But why would animals invest in behaviours that don't directly lead to reproduction? Isn’t that an evolutionary dead-end? This question has sparked many studies, arguments and controversy among the research community, with scientists traditionally framing same-sex sexual behaviour as an evolutionary costly behaviour that begs for an adaptive explanation. An alternative perspective, however, turns this idea on its head: the "ancestral indiscriminate sexual behaviour" hypothesis.
 
This challenges the notion that animals evolved from ancestors engaging exclusively in different-sex sexual behaviour, from which same-sex sexual behaviour has evolved. Instead, it suggests that the earliest sexual behaviours weren’t sex-specific at all, but animals directed their mating efforts at whoever was available, regardless of sex. Could this ancestral state explain the persistence of same-sex sexual behaviour in the animal kingdom today?
 
To understand this, we must imagine the world’s first sexually-reproducing animals. These were different to the complex multicellular animals that we are used to seeing on our TV screens today, with nature documentaries often showcasing male animals jostling it out to impress the females and attain mating opportunities. Long before elaborate courtship rituals emerged, these ancestral species didn’t have the ability to finely-tune mate recognition. Instead, we must picture a much simpler organism, consisting of just one cell. Billions of years ago, these single cells began to swap, shuffle and merge their DNA with one another, creating new cells with unique genetic combinations. While it may not resemble the intricate processes we see today, this was the humble beginning of sexual reproduction and behaviour.
 
Sexual reproduction gave organisms an edge over asexual ones by mixing genetic material, allowing offspring to adapt better to changing environments compared to clones produced through asexual reproduction. As is often the case in evolution, this new method of reproduction sparked competition between individuals, where some cells wanted to become smaller and more mobile to increase their chances of fertilising others. Because these smaller cells contributed fewer resources to new offspring, it became necessary for other cells to evolve to become larger and more nutrient-rich, so that new and developing offspring had enough energy to survive. It was this evolutionary race for reproduction that ultimately led to the evolution of biological sex, where two distinct sex cells (called gametes) evolved: male sperm and female eggs.
 
The crux of the ancestral indiscriminate sexual behaviour hypothesis lies in this evolutionary timeline of events that led to sexual reproduction and biological sex. For sperm and eggs to evolve, sexual reproduction must have come first. As a result, the earliest sexual behaviours were likely ‘indiscriminate’, aimed at increasing mating opportunities by attempting to reproduce with all individuals rather than selecting partners based on their biological sex, which was in the early stages of evolving. The result? A natural mix of same-sex and different-sex interactions.
 
For those early species, life was all about maximising reproductive success in challenging environments. Picture a group of primitive animals releasing eggs and sperm into the ocean. The goal was simple: fertilise as many cells as possible. In such scenarios, being overly selective about your mate’s sex could backfire. By directing sexual behaviour indiscriminately, individuals increased their odds of successful reproduction. In this ancestral world, missed opportunities could be far more costly than the occasional same-sex interaction. Evolution, after all, isn’t all about perfection, it’s about what works well enough to pass on genes.
 
The hypothesis therefore suggests that same-sex sexual behaviour isn’t some evolutionary oddity that evolved later, but instead it was simply part of the package. In fact, targeting sexual behaviour exclusively toward the opposite sex may be the derived, more specialised trait that evolved in specific contexts. In other words, same-sex sexual behaviour hasn’t evolved repeatedly in specific animal groups as many scientists have previously argued, but instead persists as a relic of the earliest sexual behaviours.
 
This perspective allows us to recognise some of the biases that have historically stung scientific research. Much of the 19th- and 20th-century work on same-sex sexual behaviour was likely prejudiced by heteronormative assumptions and Euro-American cultural norms, where discrimination against queer individuals may have contributed to framing same-sex behaviour as unnatural or in need of special justification. By shifting our baseline to consider indiscriminate sexual behaviour as the ancestral state, we can move beyond these biases and gain a clearer understanding of the rich diversity in animal behaviour. It reminds us that same-sex sexual behaviour is part of a broader, ancient behavioural repertoire, not some unusual exception.
 
It's important to approach this shift with caution, as science can sometimes be coopted to support subjective and dated beliefs about what is ‘natural’ in humans. It seems in modern times we are frequently seeing science being misused to justify discriminatory positions on gender, sexuality, and behaviour, such as rigid gender ideologies or assumptions about what human identities should or shouldn’t be. This risks oversimplifying complex biological and social phenomena and inappropriately applying conclusions from the animal kingdom to human society.
 
However, the ancestral indiscriminate sexual behaviour hypothesis provides a fresh lens through which to view same-sex sexual behaviour. It suggests that this behaviour isn’t an evolutionary paradox or a costly mistake, it’s a window into the ancient roots of animal behaviour. By recognising same-sex sexual behaviour as a natural and persistent trait, we can better appreciate the diversity of life and evolution’s complex, intricate and messy beauty.

All in all, I ended my trip with 96 bird species seen, including 24 new personal species for Scilly and 4 new species globally (full eBird trip report found here)! I cannot recommend Scilly in the autumn enough for anyone who enjoys birdwatching, and I am already keen to book my trip for next year!