John Horton, warden of the Cape Clear Bird Observatory, describes how he spent much of the winter months of 2025/26 volunteering his expertise in the Karoo region of South Africa. The culmination of two years’ work, in 2018, I successfully led an ambitious project to establish the first newly-accredited bird […]
Environment
This month Andrea Reichstein, from the Save Murragh Action Group – a group dedicated to protecting the Bandon river valley – highlights the rare gem of ancient oaks found in Bandon woods. Bandon town, nestled into the beautiful Bandon River Valley has something very special right on its doorstep: probably […]
By Nicholas Mitchell If you visit one of West Cork’s estuaries during July and August, you may notice something puzzling. Two Black-tailed Godwits standing side by side can look remarkably different, even though they belong to the same subspecies, ‘Limosa limosa icelandica’, which breeds in Iceland. I photographed the two birds […]
This month, branch Chair, Jez Simms, describes how some Egret species began to visit Ireland regularly, one species even breeding here now. It was not until the latter half of the last century that birders in Ireland began to regularly encounter a beautiful pure white heron known throughout Europe and […]


