Monk parakeet

30-minute birder Amanda Tuke investigates the impact of feeding wild birds, and whether it’s a factor behind the decline of a woodland specialist

DAVID LINDO THE URBAN BIRDER

Unhurried in flight and with a sideline in stolen goods, the handsome red kite is the gentleman thief of the raptor world

Threatened with extinction in the 1960s, the mighty peregrine–with its astonishing speed and super strength–has staged such a remarkable comeback that its now more successful than it was in the Middle Ages

Mike has been pondering the identification of individual birds, before drifting into insect-watching for the summer

From a heroic long-distance swimmer to a producer of spectacularly eerie sound effects, the seabirds seen swooping and diving over British waters have all manner of singular skills, says John Lewis-Stempel