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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.

Gyorgy Szimuly

Gyorgy Szimuly

January 25, 2026 – 4 min read

What's Next?

The Shorebirds That Keep Me Going Back — <i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Some birds are seen before they are met. This one remains a reason to return — perfectly understood, simply not yet in season. © Tamba Jefang</em></i>

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.

A place to stand still — <i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Calm, observant, and content to remain at the margins — where noise thins out. © </em></i><a href="https://500px.com/p/SzimiStyle?view=photos" rel="noreferrer"><i><em class="italic" style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Gyorgy Szimuly</em></i></a>

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.

World Shorebirds Day Is More Than a Single Day — This beautiful image of a Long-billed Curlew in golden lights now welcomes visitors to the new World Shorebirds Day portal. Photograph © Dorian Anderson

World Shorebirds Day Is More Than a Single Day

World Shorebirds Day was never meant to exist only for a single date on the calendar. The new portal reflects a broader hope: to keep people, ideas, observations, and conservation conversations moving throughout the year.

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.

The Pulse of a Colombian Wetland — Few birds had occupied a place on my wish list for as long as the Sungrebe. Its elusive habits and preference for hidden waterways have always given it an almost mythical quality. Seeing one at Laguna Guarinocito was the highlight of an afternoon spent exploring a wetland habitat largely absent from our Colombian itinerary. Despite the oppressive heat, still air and near-100% humidity, the abundance of waterbirds made the stop one of the most rewarding diversions of the trip. © Hasan Al-Farhan

The Pulse of a Colombian Wetland

After days of cloud forests, mountain roads and Andean endemics, a small wetland detour in Colombia’s Magdalena Valley offered something different. In oppressive heat and near-saturated humidity, Laguna Guarinocito revealed the pulse of a landscape overflowing with life.

A Wandering Albatross in a Hungarian Village: The Documentary That Changed How I Understood Birds — A Vogelkop Lophorina illustrated by the Hungarian wildlife artist, Szabolcs Kókay for David Attenborough’s 95th birthday. For many people around the world, Birds-of-paradise first became living reality, rather than myth, through Attenborough’s documentaries. © Szabolcs Kókay

A Wandering Albatross in a Hungarian Village: The Documentary That Changed How I Understood Birds

Before the internet, a young birder wrote a letter to David Attenborough — and received a signed photograph beside a Wandering Albatross chick in return.

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.

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.