Tweet of the Day

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Puffin. Far better-known for its comical looks than its calls, the puffin is a bird that that is recognised by many and has earned the nickname "sea-parrot" or "clown of the sea".

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Kittiwake. In June you can find kittiwakes breeding on sea-cliffs around the coast. You may well hear them before you see them, shouting their name from vertiginous cliffs.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Nightjar. Take a walk on a heath on a warm summer evening and you may hear the strange churring sound of the nightjar.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the female Cuckoo. The "cuckoo" call of the male is perhaps one of the most recognisable of all bird sounds. But the sound of "bathwater gurgling down a plughole" is much less familiar and is the call of the female looking for somewhere to lay her eggs.

David Attenborough presents the Sedge Warbler. Sedge warblers like tangled vegetation near water. They're summer visitors here but seek out similar habitats in Africa where they spend the winter. Before leaving our shores in autumn, they gorge on insects, often doubling their weight.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the European Storm Petrel. The storm petrels as a group are the smallest seabirds in the world and called "Jesus Christ birds" because they give the appearance they can walk on water as they flutter over the sea surface dangling their legs whilst looking for fo...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Guillemot. Guillemots breed on cliff ledges and the chick is encouraged to make its first flight at the pointing of fledging by being encouraged to jump by its mother or father calling from the sea below.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Spotted Crake. If it weren't for its whiplash song, the spotted crake could win a prize as our least visible bird. Unlike its showy relatives the coot and the moorhen, this polka-dotted skulker is notoriously hard to find and only rarely betrays itself by s...

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Redshank. Redshanks are one of our commonest wading birds at home in freshwater marshes and on estuaries where you can easily recognise them from their combination of long scarlet legs, white rumps and wing-bars and greyish brown bodies.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Garganey. When you hear the male's peculiar call, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Garganey is a grasshopper rather than a duck. One of its other names is 'cricket teal' and the dry rattle is unlike any other British bird sound you'll hear.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents young Tawny Owls. Most of us know the "hoot" and "too-wit" of Tawny Owls but might be puzzled if we heard wheezing in the woods, the sound of the young.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Greenfinch. Often seen singing from the tops of garden trees looking large for a finch with a heavy bill, these are sadly a declining garden 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 Shag. Perhaps the least vocal of all British birds they hiss and belch to warn off interlopers getting too close to their nest. They are seabirds and their name comes from the shaggy crest on the top of their head.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Dartford Warbler. Dartford Warblers prefer Mediterranean wine-producing climates, which means ice and snow is bad news for them. The harsh winters of 1961 and 1962 reduced the population to just 11 pairs, but fortunately the numbers have since recovered.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Grey Heron. The Grey Heron makes a loud croaking sound, often standing in an ungainly way on a tree-top which it might share with many others for nesting - the heronry.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Blackcap. Many Blackcaps winter in sub-Saharan Africa, but increasingly birds have been wintering in the Mediterranean and over the last few decades spent the winter in the UK.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Garden Warbler. Garden warblers aren't very well named .these are birds which like overgrown thickets of shrubs and small trees and so you're more likely to find them in woodland clearings especially in newly- coppiced areas.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the extraordinary duet between cellist Beatrice Harrison and a nightingale recorded live as an outside broadcast and the first broadcast of any wild animal not in captivity.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the nightingale. (Part 1 of 2) A bird whose song of rich crescendos of pure whistles and breathless phrases is hailed as one of the most complex and beautiful in the bird world and quite different to its plain brown appearance.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the wood warbler. Their song has been described as "a spinning coin on a marble slab" and you're most likely to hear this chorister in oak or beech wood.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Swift. Swifts live in the sky, feeding, mating and sleeping on the wing. Their feet are so reduced they cannot stand particularly well on land, only the near vertical surfaces on which they build their nest.

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Song Thrush. The male's song in the dawn chorus includes a repertoire of over a hundred different phrases making it one of the richest songs of any British Bird.

David Attenborough narrates the first in a new series of short stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs, beginning with the Cuckoo. After spending winter in Africa, the migratory urge propels the Cuckoos northwards. And for many of us their return is a welcome sign that spring is well and truly here.