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A Familiar Unfamiliar: The Yellow-browed Warbler — Finding a Yellow-browed Warbler is always memorable; finding another a year later along the same stretch of road makes the encounter rather extraordinary – at least for me. © Natthaphat Chotjuckdikul

A Familiar Unfamiliar: The Yellow-browed Warbler

A year after finding a Yellow-browed Warbler along an Aberdeen coastal road, I returned by chance – and heard that familiar unfamiliar call again, barely 500 metres away.

Gyorgy Szimuly

Gyorgy Szimuly

October 18, 2026 – 3 min read

What's Next?

Another Barn Owl on the Road — <i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Another Western Barn Owl lost on a British road. This one was found on the A701 in Scotland last night. © Gyorgy Szimuly</em></i>

Another Barn Owl on the Road

After about half a million miles on British roads, Western Barn Owl is the third most frequent bird in my roadkill notes. I have found 17 so far. Why are Barn Owls so vulnerable to traffic, and can anything actually be done?

Antpittas Are No Longer Only Voices — A Chestnut-crowned Antpitta, the species that finally ended my long run of hearing antpittas without seeing them. © David Hollie

Antpittas Are No Longer Only Voices

After hearing antpittas without seeing them in Costa Rica and again in Colombia, a pair of Chestnut-crowned Antpittas finally broke the streak. A few days later, Brownie offered a rather different kind of encounter.

A Different Way of Seeing Birds — The Ruddy Quail-Dove is a secretive forest-floor species whose unobtrusive habits can make detection remarkably difficult. © Michael Stubblefield

A Different Way of Seeing Birds

A Ruddy Quail-Dove hidden only metres from a Colombian forest trail became an unexpected demonstration of what thermal imaging can bring to modern birding.

When Variation Doesn’t Become a Boundary: A Putative Mixed Subspecies Pairing in Long-tailed Tits — A familiar presence in Central European woodlands, the Long-tailed Tit Aegithalos caudatus europaeus carries the darker head pattern that defines much of the region’s breeding population—an anchor against which rarer, paler forms reveal themselves. © Alexis Lours (CC-BY)

When Variation Doesn’t Become a Boundary: A Putative Mixed Subspecies Pairing in Long-tailed Tits

A pair of Long-tailed Tits reveals how subspecies boundaries, so clear on paper, begin to soften in the field when variation and behaviour intersect.

The Hidden Gift of Dipping — A Rock Ptarmigan in the alpine landscape where it belongs. A master of camouflage, and so far, a bird that has managed to stay just out of my sight. © Katarzyna Kucharska

The Hidden Gift of Dipping

Some birds stay on our lists for years — not because they are rare, but because they refuse to appear when we look for them. The Rock Ptarmigan has done this to me more than once, and in doing so taught me something unexpected about birding.

An Almost Perfect Day: From Marsh Warbler to Golden Eagle — Marsh Warbler has been singing near the Port of Aberdee© Peter Winn

An Almost Perfect Day: From Marsh Warbler to Golden Eagle

A singing Marsh Warbler in Aberdeen, an Arctic gull along the pier, and a Golden Eagle drifting through southern skies — a day where chance encounters captured the essence of why we keep looking up.

A Familiar Unfamiliar: The Yellow-browed Warbler — Finding a Yellow-browed Warbler is always memorable; finding another a year later along the same stretch of road makes the encounter rather extraordinary – at least for me. © Natthaphat Chotjuckdikul

A Familiar Unfamiliar: The Yellow-browed Warbler

A year after finding a Yellow-browed Warbler along an Aberdeen coastal road, I returned by chance – and heard that familiar unfamiliar call again, barely 500 metres away.

PatchBird Is Now on the Map — Feeding White Storks often encountered during a PatchBird surveys in Central Europe. PatchBird is built around a simple idea: record every bird you detect for fifteen minutes, then return to the same place and do it again. © Gyorgy Szimuly

PatchBird Is Now on the Map

PatchBird has a new interactive survey map, making it much easier to find a point and take part. The method couldn’t be simpler: fifteen minutes, every bird you detect, and one important requirement – come back and do it again.

Antpittas Are No Longer Only Voices — A Chestnut-crowned Antpitta, the species that finally ended my long run of hearing antpittas without seeing them. © David Hollie

Antpittas Are No Longer Only Voices

After hearing antpittas without seeing them in Costa Rica and again in Colombia, a pair of Chestnut-crowned Antpittas finally broke the streak. A few days later, Brownie offered a rather different kind of encounter.

The Secret Life of the Andean Tapaculos — The Andean tapaculos, like the Spillmann's Tapaculo, are among the most elusive birds in the Neotropics. A journey through Colombia revealed not only why they are so difficult to see, but also how evolution and geography shaped one of the Andes' most remarkable bird groups. © Ruven Schoeman

The Secret Life of the Andean Tapaculos

The Andean tapaculos are among the most elusive birds in the Neotropics. A journey through Colombia revealed not only why they are so difficult to see, but also how evolution, geography and curiosity have shaped one of the most remarkable bird groups of the Andes.

The Tree of Life — Our first sighting of this striking Blue-necked Tanager (Stilpnia cyanicollis) came in the “Tree of Life”, where a single fruiting tree drew an extraordinary variety of birds into one canopy. A fitting introduction to one of Colombia’s most colourful species. © David F. Belmonte Rguez-Pascual

The Tree of Life

A fleeting glimpse of a large bird made us turn the car around. What followed was forty-five minutes beside a single fruiting tree that became one of the busiest birding stops of our Colombian adventure.