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.

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 snowfinches 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!

As a post-PhD break, I have just spent a month travelling over land around Canada and the north-east USA. It was an incredible trip, where I got to see a wide-range of cultures in different cities and towns, as well as some top quality birds. Due to the nature of the trip, I was unable to take my camera for wildlife photography, but it was still great to get out into natural spaces and explore the local wildlife!

The real highlight for me was my final week at Cape May, in the southern tip of New Jersey. Cape May is famed for its birding, particularly during the spring and autumn when huge numbers of migratory species are seen. The narrow peninsula acts a bit like a funnel to the migrating songbirds, hawks and waders, channeling them towards the very tip of the peninsula where they briefly rest before making long journeys over sea or land. This effect is very noticeable when birding at specific spots, such as the Cape May Bird Observatory's Hawkwatch platform, where one morning we had 8 bird of prey species including 35 ospreys and approximately 50 turkey vultures. Having never birded this side of the Atlantic before, I decided to book onto a tour group so that I could have a little help with identifying unfamiliar species. This was much needed as I ended my time in North America with 125 species I had never seen before! My entire eBird trip report can be found here.

I'm really pleased to say that I passed my PhD Viva today without corrections, which means I am now officially a Doctor of Biology! The viva involved an interview process with two professors in similar fields of biology asking lots of questions as to the reasoning behind my research as well as my key findings. Despite being a nerve-wracking process, it was also a great opportunity to talk to experts in the field as to how my research fits into the wider context of evolutionary and ecological research. It goes without saying that I couldn't have achieved this without the professional and personal support of my supervisors (Ben, Josh and Ella) and the rest of the research group at Oxford - thank you everyone and on to the next chapter!

Spotted flycatchers are very much a 'Brill bird' to me. Brill, a small village on the Buckinghamshire side of the Bucks/Oxon border, is where my parents live and where I grew up. The unusual thing about the village is that it is on top of a hill at roughly 120m altitude in an area of generally very flat land. To me, this seems a likely reason as to why it draws in a few migrating species during the autumn that hit higher land on their long flights. Spotted flycatchers are a migratory species which breed across the UK and overwinter in tropical Africa. The UK breeding population has taken a real hit over the last few years, dropping by 92% between 1967–2020, making them a red list species that aren't particularly easy to find. The reason for this severe decline is somewhat unclear, but is likely linked to climate change at their wintering sites as well as a loss of insects and suitable habitat in the UK. Despite this serious decline, I came across no less than four on a walk through the village common today, which was a real treat!

I had another great trip to Scilly with my family, with plenty of time to get around the islands and take photos of nature. The birdlife is very different at this time of year compared to when I visited in April, with many fewer species that are passing through on their migrations. However, this time of year is great to see the (mostly) resident shorebird species as their feeding behaviour works like clockwork with the rising and falling of the tides.

This year I was lucky enough to take part in the centuries-old tradition of the Swan Upping. This is a five-day journey up the Thames where a flotilla of traditional boats manned by smartly-dressed 'Swan Uppers' row 79 miles from Sunbury-on-Thames to Abingdon.

As a child, I remember hearing that widely-told fact: "Did you know the Queen owns all the swans in the country?". But this is not quite true! While the Crown holds the right to claim ownership of all 'unmarked' mute swans swimming in open waters across the UK, this doesn’t mean they own every swan.

Historically, swans were considered a delicacy for royal banquets, and ownership rights were granted to individuals and organisations by the monarchy. Today, just three organisations retain these rights: Abbotsbury Swannery, the Vintners and the Dyers. Abbotsbury Swannery, located on a coastal lagoon in Dorset, is a managed colony where swans live and breed under the care of the swannery's staff, who maintain the environment to support their needs. In contrast, the Vintners and Dyers are two London livery companies, and they hold ownership rights to wild swans found on the River Thames. These river swans live in the wild, navigating the challenges of life on a busy waterway. This difference highlights the role each organisation plays in the ongoing stewardship of mute swans in the UK, and it’s where the centuries-old tradition of the Swan Upping comes in!

During the Swan Upping, every third swan encountered across the five-day journey along the Thames is claimed by either the Crown, the Vintners, or the Dyers. In the past, notches were made to the top of swans' beaks to claim ownership. These days, individuals can be marked through much less obtrusive methods, and instead a metal ring is placed around one leg, which is a harmless method of identification commonly used in bird research. However, much more has changed than just the marking method. Although swans were once prized for their meat, they are now protected as a species, and so the modern-day Swan Upping is a celebration of conservation and education.

Conservation is essential for the swan population on the River Thames as boat activity, fishing, and riverbank construction has disrupted their natural habitat. Additionally, predation by non-native species such as mink, and injuries from discarded fishing tackle, pose significant threats to swans. The King’s Swan Marker works closely with swan rescue groups to protect swans on the river, helping to ensure the population's survival. The annual Swan Upping also provides a valuable opportunity to collect data on how the population is fluctuating over time with changes in land-use, while also tracking how other bird populations (such as geese, ducks and grebes) are changing.

Education also plays a large role in the Swan Upping. Children from local schools visit the Swan Uppers along the banks of the River Thames, gaining the opportunity to learn about swan biology and the habitats they need. Seeing cygnets up close often sparks a sense of wonder and fosters a connection with nature, inspiring future generations to value and protect wildlife.

Participating in the Swan Upping gave me a deeper appreciation for this wonderfully quirky and uniquely British tradition, blending history, conservation, and community engagement. It’s a celebration of how even the most unusual customs can inspire connection with the natural world. Embracing traditions like these reminds us of the importance of cherishing not just the natural world, but also aspects of our cultural heritage that shape how we protect the environment for generations to come.

Finally, I recently helped at a ringing demonstration for a local environmental group. Here, we got to show those who attended the wonderful diversity of species across the site, which made me realise how sharing these types of data collection with local communities can encourage people's appreciation of the natural world, promoting conservation of key habitats even in urban settings.