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Gyorgy Szimuly

Gyorgy Szimuly

I'm a lifelong, well-travelled birder, writer, and bird conservationist, a founder of World Shorebirds Day, the PatchBird Surveys and The Ornithologist Magazine. I'm especially interested in shorebird conservation and ornithology in general.

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.

Fifty Years in the Same Direction with Birds — A life in nature rarely reveals itself through milestones. It is shaped — in returning, again and again, to the same instinct to step outside. © Gyorgy Szimuly

Fifty Years in the Same Direction with Birds

A quiet reflection on fifty years spent observing, moving, and remaining outside — not in search of answers, but in search of direction.

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.

How We Plan Birding Through Colombia — Among many other beautiful hummingbirds, the Crowned Woodnymph glows in the humid forests of the Colombian Andes — a fitting emblem of the landscapes awaiting us along our carefully planned route. © Patrick Maurice

How We Plan Birding Through Colombia

Planning a birding trip through Colombia requires more than chasing species lists. Here is the method we used to design a realistic itinerary using eBird hotspots, habitat diversity, and a slower PatchBird-style approach.

The Slender-billed Curlew I Knew Might Vanish — And Did — The European Turtle Dove is still present in parts of Europe — but far less secure than its song suggests. © Rudi Petitjean

The Slender-billed Curlew I Knew Might Vanish — And Did

I understood extinction in theory. I did not believe the Slender-billed Curlew would finish within my lifetime. Now another familiar bird stands on that slope.

An African Finfoot and a Twenty-One-Year-Old Promise — A bird that appears and disappears on its own terms — and, on this day, brought three people back to the same stretch of river. © Hasan Al-Fahan

An African Finfoot and a Twenty-One-Year-Old Promise

A search for African Finfoot on the Gambia River reconnects with a missed pitta in Thailand — and a promise made quietly twenty-one years earlier.

A New Continent at Thirty: Notes from a Moroccan Birding Trip — Orange light folding over the dunes of Merzouga – distance felt tangible, and silence stretched beyond the horizon.

A New Continent at Thirty: Notes from a Moroccan Birding Trip

A father–son journey through Morocco at thirty – landscapes, method, missed species, and a long-awaited Cream-coloured Courser.

The Shorebirds That Keep Me Going Back — Some birds are seen before they are met. This one remains a reason to return — perfectly understood, simply not yet in season. © Tamba Jefang

The Shorebirds That Keep Me Going Back

A personal reflection on lifer shorebirds, local knowledge, and unfinished encounters from a spring birding trip to The Gambia.

How PatchBird Changed the Way I Bird — A Franklin’s Gull in breeding plumage, photographed in Mexico 21 years ago — from a time when tools like eBird did not yet exist, and many moments like this could only be held in memory. © Gyorgy Szimuly

How PatchBird Changed the Way I Bird

PatchBird began not as a project, but as a shift in attention — fifteen minutes of stillness that transformed everyday birding.

A place to stand still — Calm, observant, and content to remain at the margins — where noise thins out. © Gyorgy Szimuly

A place to stand still

A quiet reflection on observation, stillness, and birds as a discipline of attention, marking the opening of the Bird Observer site.

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.

At Risk in the Canopy: The Vulnerability of Hungary’s Nesting White-backed Woodpeckers — An adult White-backed Woodpecker perched at its nesting cavity in an old beech tree – a rare and vulnerable breeder in Hungary’s forests. © Gyorgy Szimuly

At Risk in the Canopy: The Vulnerability of Hungary’s Nesting White-backed Woodpeckers

Among Hungary’s last mature forests, the elusive White-backed Woodpecker faces mounting threats. This piece explores their fragility, habitat pressures, and why their conservation matters more than ever.