Birdwatch Magazine

28 August, 2025

September is here and the peak weeks of autumn lie ahead. This is a thrilling time for birders up and down the land, with an assortment of seasonal specialities out there to target. Among them is the beautiful Sabine’s Gull, which peaks in British and Irish waters in September. In this issue of Birdwatch, Niall Keogh takes a detailed look at this beautiful larid, examining its status and migration routes, as well as the best times and places to encounter it. In the first of a new occasional series of first-hand accounts charting legendary spells in British and Irish birding, Richard Bonser casts his mind back to the rarity-filled weeks of autumn 2008, when a long list of monster finds saw twitchers scrambling to keep up with the season’s thrilling pace. Inishmore has emerged as one of Ireland’s most prolific spots for rarities over the past couple of decades, especially when it comes to transatlantic visitors. Dermot Breen introduces the island and its top birding sites.