Tweet of the Day

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the rock pipit. The sight of a greyish bird no bigger than a sparrow, at home on the highest cliffs and feeding within reach of breaking waves can come as a surprise. In spring and early summer, the male Pipits become wonderful extroverts and perform to attract...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the Bullfinch. The males have rose-pink breasts and black caps and are eye-catching whilst the females are a duller pinkish-grey but share the black cap. Exactly why they're called Bullfinches isn't clear - perhaps it's to do with their rather thickset appearanc...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the common redstart. Redstarts are summer visitors from sub-Saharan Africa. The males are very handsome birds, robin-sized, but with a black mask, white forehead and an orange tail. John Buxton gave us a fascinating insight into their lives when, as a prisoner o...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the long-tailed tit. They are sociable birds and family ties are vital. They even roost together at night, huddled in lines on a branch, and this behaviour saves lives in very cold winter weather. The nest of the Long-Tailed Tit is one of the most elaborate of a...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachen presents the oystercatcher. These black and white waders used to be called sea-pies because of their pied plumage, which contrasts sharply with their pink legs and long red bill. Oystercatchers don't often eat oysters. Instead they use their powerful bill to break into m...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the great black-backed gull. These gulls are the largest in the world. They are quite common around our coasts and you can see them in summer perched on a crag watching for any signs of danger or potential prey. Although they are scavengers Great Black-Backs wil...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachen presents the ringed plover. Camouflage is crucial to ringed plovers because they lay their eggs among the pebbles and shingle of the open beach. To protect her young from a predator, the Ringed Plover will stumble away from the nest while dragging one wing on the ground.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the wood pigeon. One of our most widespread birds, you can hear this song all year round; just about anywhere. The young are called squabs and along with seeds and green foliage, Wood Pigeons feed their chicks with "pigeon milk", a secretion from their stomach l...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the house sparrow. These birds are more commonly found living alongside us than any other British bird. Perhaps the most enterprising birds were the House Sparrows which bred below ground in a working mine at Frickley Colliery in Yorkshire.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Michaela Strachan presents the Stonechat. Stonechats are well named: their call sounds just like two pebbles being struck together. The males are striking birds with a black head, white collar and orange chest and are about the size of a plump robin.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the red-backed shrike. Red-backed shrikes were once regular summer visitors to scrubby hillsides and heathery commons and are handsome birds; males have a grey head, reddish-brown back, black and white tail and a black bandit-mask. They were known as butcher birds...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the little tern. Little terns are our smallest terns. You can pick them out from our other terns by their smaller size, white forehead and yellow bill with a black tip. They look flimsy and delicate but move too close to one of their colonies, and you'll unleash a...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the kestrel. The kestrel is widely distributed throughout the UK and, when hovering, is our most recognisable bird of prey. Their chestnut back and wings, and habit of holding themselves stationary in mid-air, are a unique combination; small wonder that an old nam...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the whinchat. Whinchats are perky little summer visitors, about the size of a robin and migrate to the UK in spring from their wintering grounds south of the Sahara. They're birds of open country, preferring moors, heaths and rough ground and are often found where...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the black-browed albatross. Although they're residents of the Antarctic seas , black-browed albatrosses have turned up in the UK many times. For a while, Albert-or Albert Ross as he was christened by birdwatchers- was one of the most well-known birds in the Britis...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the red-necked phalarope. Red-necked phalaropes are among our rarest waders, small and colourful with needle-like bills and they breed in very limited numbers on the edges of our islands. There are probably only around 20 pairs of these birds in summer in the Oute...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the lesser black-backed gull. These smart gulls are charcoal grey on top and white beneath. Like herring gulls, their close relatives LBBs have moved into urban areas and now breed on flat roofs in the centre of cities. It seems almost any flat surface will do. In...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the dotterel. Dotterels are waders, rather like small plovers with a broad white-eye stripe. In the UK, they're almost confined as breeding birds to the Scottish Highlands. They don't tend to fly away when approached which led our ancestors to believe that they ar...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the sparrowhawk. A garden visit from a sparrowhawk can be an exciting affair. They're smash-and grab raiders, using bushes, hedgerows and fences as cover to take their victims by surprise. Males are blue-grey above, with a striking rusty-orange chest and are small...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the spotted flycatcher. Spotted flycatchers may be rather plain-looking but they're full of character and they often nest in our gardens. The first sign that one's about may be a pale shape darting out from a tree to pluck a fly in mid-air with an audible snap of...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the cirl bunting. Cirl buntings are related to yellowhammers and look rather like them, but the male cirl bunting has a black throat and a greenish chest-band. Their rattling song may evoke memories of warm dry hillsides in France or Italy. Cirl buntings are Medit...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the kingfisher. The Ancient Greeks knew the kingfisher as Halcyon and believed that the female built her nest on the waves, calming the seas while she brooded her eggs: hence the expression Halcyon days, which we use now for periods of tranquillity. Kingfishers ca...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the herring gull. Herring gulls now regularly breed inland and that's because of the way we deal with our refuse. Since the Clean Air Acts of 1956 banned the burning of refuse at rubbish tips, the birds have been able to cash in on the food that we reject: And our...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the tree pipit. Tree pipits are small brown birds without any bright colours or distinctive features; but you can identify one from a distance when it is singing, because it has a very obvious display flight. The male bird sings from April to the end of July, laun...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the coal tit. Coal tits often visit our bird-tables but don't hang around. They dart off with food to hide it in crevices and crannies. What the bird is doing is hiding or cache-ing food to be eaten later. Coal tits are smaller than their relatives and have lower...