Tweet of the Day

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the mallard. Mallards are our commonest ducks. In winter, mallards from Continental Europe join our resident birds. Some may have flown from as far away as Russia and many infiltrate local flocks, so the bills which snatch your bread may have been born hundreds, if...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the great bustard. Great bustards, one of the heaviest flying birds in the world, were most common in Wiltshire and East Anglia but in the past they were hunted to extinction and the last known breeding birds in the UK were in 1832. Today, great bustards are back on...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the grey heron. Winter can be a challenging time for grey herons. In freezing conditions, their favoured food supplies of fish and amphibians are locked beneath the ice and prolonged spells of cold weather can be fatal for these birds.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the great northern diver. The wailing cries of a great northern diver echo around the lakes where they live. If the bird sounds striking, then its appearance is just as dramatic....a dagger bill, sleek submarine–shaped body, it's plumage covered in grap...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the hen harrier. The sight of hen harriers floating in to their roost on a winter's afternoon is one that once seen, you'll never forget. Hen harriers are long-winged, graceful birds of prey which hunt by quartering rough ground such as marshes and moor...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the grey wagtail. Grey wagtails are supremely graceful birds which boost their appeal by nesting in photogenic locations. They revel in shaded spots near swift-flowing water and will also nest by canal lock-gates or mill-races.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the blue tit. The perky blue tit is a stalwart of garden bird-feeders. This popular British bird has a blue cap and wings, olive green back and yellow belly. The male and females look identical to us but blue tits can clearly tell each other apart, find...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the shoveler. Swimming in circles, their huge beaks trawling the surface, shovelers do the job of baleen whales on our lakes and ponds. In winter our shoveler population is boosted by Continental birds. They're rather shy though and you're not likely to...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the merlin. These diminutive falcons nest in deep heather on moorland, mainly in the north and west. In winter they also hunt over open country, hillsides and coastal marshes. The male merlin or jack is our smallest falcon, about the size of a mistle th...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the Moorhen. Almost anywhere there's freshwater you might hear or see a moorhen. They're easy to identify from their red and yellow bill, red shield on the forehead and green-ish yellow legs with a red patch that looks like a garter.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the Coot. The explosive high-pitched call of the coot is probably a sound most of us associate with our local park lakes. Coot are dumpy, charcoal-coloured birds related to moorhens, though unlike their cousins, they tend to spend more time on open wate...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the Lesser White-Fronted Goose. The lesser white-fronted goose is now a very rare bird in the UK, but the siting in Bristol of the BBC's Natural History Unit, owes much to this bird.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Chris Packham presents the story of the Mandarin Duck. A drake mandarin has orange whiskers, red bill, a broad creamy eye-stripe and an iridescent purple chest, set off by a pair of extraordinary curved orange wing feathers which stand up like a boat's sails. Today there are seven thousan...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Glossy Ibis. If, from a distance, you see what appears to be a stout-looking curlew with bronze-coloured highlights, it's probably a glossy ibis. Glossy ibis have always been rare visitors to the UK but in recent years, they've flown here much...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Black-Necked Grebe. In winter, the black-necked grebe is largely grey and white with a dark cap and eyes like rubies. You'll need to seek out Black-necked grebes in their favourite spots, which include large London reservoirs and shallow seas a...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Greylag Goose. Greylags are the biggest and bulkiest of our wild grey geese with bright orange bills and pink legs. When they fly, you can see large pale grey panels on the wings. The greylag has been fully domesticated for around three thousan...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Great White Egret. Great White Egrets are much bigger than little egrets, another recent colonist. These majestic birds first bred in Britain in 2012 at Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve in Somerset where two nests produced a total of five...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Bewick's Swan. This year is the 50th anniversary of Bewick Swan studies, begun by Sir Peter Scott, at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire. Bewick Swans return here and to other UK sites each winter to escape the icy grip of the Arctic tundra and stud...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Collared Dove. Although these attractive sandy doves grace our bird-tables or greet us at dawn almost wherever we live in the UK, their story is one of the most extraordinary of any British bird.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the ring-necked Parakeet. These long-tailed emerald-green parakeets from Africa and Asia first appeared in the wild in the UK in 1969. Forty years on ring-necked parakeets are here to stay and their progress is being carefully monitored.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Great Tit. That metallic 'tea-cher, tea-cher' song of the great tit is instantly recognisable and you can hear it on mild days from mid-December onwards. It's the origin of the old country name, 'Saw-Sharpener'.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Mistle Thrush. Mistle thrushes are early singers and you'll often hear one singing from the top of a tall tree in windy winter weather. Because of this habit, an old name for the thrush is 'storm cock'.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the Crossbill. Crossbills are large finches that specialise in eating conifer seeds. To break into the pine or larch cones, they've evolved powerful bills with crossed tips which help the birds prise off the woody scales of each cone. Crossbills br...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the magpie. Magpies have always had a rascally streetwise image. They featured in anti-theft campaigns on television in the 1980s, and long before that, their kleptomaniac tendencies were celebrated by Rossini in his opera, 'The Thieving Magpie'. Their pied plu...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the story of the raven. Ravens are one of the most widely distributed birds in the world and can survive Arctic winters and scorching deserts. In the UK, Ravens were once widespread, even in cities but persecution drove them back into the wilder parts of our is...