About Bird Observer
I’m Gyorgy Szimuly, a Hungarian birder, writer and conservationist living in the United Kingdom.
Birds have been part of my life for decades. I have watched them in many countries, worked on conservation projects, organised surveys, counted shorebirds, travelled considerable distances to see particular species and spent equally worthwhile hours watching birds close to home. Bird Observer is where I write about that part of my life.
It is a personal birding site, but I have never been particularly interested in keeping a conventional diary of where I went and what I saw. I would rather write about an observation that stayed with me, something that went wrong, a bird that was ridiculously difficult to find, an idea that developed in the field, or a question that continued bothering me afterwards.
That means the subjects can vary considerably.
A Colombian antpitta can lead to a story about years of hearing these birds without seeing one. Finding a Ruddy Quail-Dove with a thermal camera can make me think about how technology is changing birding. Another day I may write about local birding, conservation, field surveys, photography, travel or simply an encounter with a bird that I enjoyed enough to want to remember properly.
Not every observation needs to teach me something. Sometimes I just saw a fantastic bird.
Birding and ornithology
I am not an academic ornithologist, but my interest in birds goes well beyond maintaining a life list.
Scientific thinking, field methods, accurate records and long-term data are important to me. So are the skills that are much harder to put into a spreadsheet: learning calls, reading habitat, noticing behaviour and developing the instinct that makes you stop because something does not look or sound quite right.
I also don't pretend to know everything. Birding has a useful habit of exposing gaps in your knowledge and occasionally making decades of experience look rather inadequate.
My field observations often find their way into eBird, and some become part of more structured projects. Others remain exactly what they were: an encounter with a bird on a particular day.
Bird Observer gives me somewhere to write about both.
The wider picture
Several projects that occupy a large part of my life occasionally cross into these pages.
I founded World Shorebirds Day in 2014 and continue to develop its Global Shorebird Counts and other conservation work. PatchBird Surveys grew from my interest in repeated observation and what regular counts from ordinary places can contribute over time.
I also edit The Ornithologist, an independent publication about bird science, ornithology and conservation.
There is inevitably some overlap between them, but they have different purposes. The Ornithologist is a publication. World Shorebirds Day and PatchBird are projects. Bird Observer is personal.
That distinction matters to me.
Here I can write about the experience behind an observation rather than turning everything into a report, project or scientific article. I can follow an idea without needing to prove that it has wider significance. I can also change my mind.
Why I write it
I have accumulated an enormous number of bird observations over the years. Most inevitably become a line in a notebook, an eBird checklist, a photograph or a memory.
Some deserve more space.
Writing them down forces me to return to the details: where the bird was, what it was doing, what I noticed, what I missed and why I still remember it. Occasionally that leads somewhere unexpected. At other times the story remains very simple.
Both are fine with me.
Bird Observer is where I keep those stories.
A note on language and AI
Hungarian is my first language, although I have lived in the United Kingdom for more than fourteen years and use English every day. My English has improved enormously during that time, but writing and publishing in a second language still benefits from careful editing.
Long before generative AI, I used tools such as Grammarly to check grammar, spelling and phrasing. I now also use AI as an editorial tool: for proofreading, improving awkward English, checking repetition and, where useful, helping me organise material into a clearer structure.
The observations, experiences, opinions and memories published on Bird Observer are my own. I make the editorial decisions and review the finished text before publication. Where an article begins with my field notes or personal account, I want the editing process to preserve the way I tell the story rather than replace it with a generic writing style.
I see little value in deliberately leaving grammatical or stylistic errors in an article simply to demonstrate that a person wrote it. Good editing has always used the tools available to the writer. The tools have changed; the responsibility for what appears under my name has not.
Bird Observer is therefore neither an AI-generated birding site nor a publication pretending that modern writing tools do not exist. AI assists with the language and editing where it is useful. The birding, photographs where credited to me, experiences, judgement and final responsibility remain human.
Used this way, AI does not replace my voice. If anything, it helps me express in English more precisely what I already wanted to say.
If you value thoughtful writing about birds and the ideas behind them, you may wish to explore The Thousand Birder Circle at The Ornithologist.
It is a small community for readers who appreciate ornithology, science communication, and independent writing about the avian world.
Explore the Circle