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Can Visible Bird Migration Turn Invisible? — Redwing passage remained relatively steady throughout the morning, even as Woodpigeon numbers declined sharply and the clearing skies brought changes in observed flight altitude. © Harry Appleyard

Can Visible Bird Migration Turn Invisible?

More than 2,100 Woodpigeons and 1,100 Redwings passed my inland counting point in Buckinghamshire. As the sky cleared, the birds climbed higher and the visible migration almost disappeared. Was the movement ending, or were the birds simply flying beyond my sight?

Gyorgy Szimuly

Gyorgy Szimuly

October 28, 2026 – 7 min read

What's Next?

Putting Nocturnal Birds on the Map — <i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Tawny Owls are particularly suitable for nocturnal acoustic surveys, although their calling activity varies considerably with season and breeding status. A silent woodland is not necessarily an owl-free woodland. © Dean Eades / </em></i><a href="https://birdmad.com/" rel="noreferrer"><i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">BirdMad</em></i></a>

Putting Nocturnal Birds on the Map

What can a few years of incidental owl encounters reveal? My observations along British roads have become an interactive map, and the beginning of something much bigger with PatchBird Nocturnal.

A Familiar Unfamiliar: The Yellow-browed Warbler — <i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">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. © </em></i><a href="https://ebird.org/profile/NjYxOTc3/world" rel="noreferrer"><i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Natthaphat Chotjuckdikul</em></i></a>

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.

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.

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.

Can Visible Bird Migration Turn Invisible? — Redwing passage remained relatively steady throughout the morning, even as Woodpigeon numbers declined sharply and the clearing skies brought changes in observed flight altitude. © Harry Appleyard

Can Visible Bird Migration Turn Invisible?

More than 2,100 Woodpigeons and 1,100 Redwings passed my inland counting point in Buckinghamshire. As the sky cleared, the birds climbed higher and the visible migration almost disappeared. Was the movement ending, or were the birds simply flying beyond my sight?

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.