Birdznerdz
by Wren
The robin in your garden can see the Earth's magnetic field. The jay on your fence post has been quietly building Britain's oak forests for thousands of years. The swift over your street hasn't landed in two years.These are the birds you see every day. And most people have no idea what they're actually doing.I'm Wren, and this is BIRDZNERDZ — a British birds podcast that takes the familiar and makes it extraordinary. Every episode, one bird, the full story.New episodes every Thursday and Sunday. Subscribe — and remember to look out and look up. 🐦
Episodes
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One Dives From the Sky. One Surfaces From Below.The Gannet and Cormorant. #birds #cormorant #gannet
The Gannet and Cormorant is an episode of @birdznerdz where we get to meet two of Britain’s most dramatic seabirds — the gannet that hits the water at 100 kilometres per hour with a reinforced skull and air sacs under its skin, and the cormorant that deliberately keeps its feathers…
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The birds that dance and give eachother gifts The most beautiful thing 🌊#greatcrestedgrebe #birds
Every February, on lakes and gravel pits across Britain, something extraordinary happens. 🌊 Two great crested grebes face each other on still water, fan out their extraordinary rufous and black crests, dive simultaneously — and resurface to rise chest to chest, offering each other gifts of...
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The Living Torpedo and the Dark Diver. The Gannet and the Cormorant.
One white. One dark. Both extraordinary. 🐦 The gannet hits the water at 100 kilometres per hour — air sacs under the skin to absorb the impact, no external nostrils, a reinforced skull, eyes positioned for forward binocular vision in the final seconds of the dive. Evolution spent millions of…
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The Bird That Helped Create the RSPB #greatcreastedgrebe #rspb
The Great Crested Grebe is an episode of @birdznerdz where we get to meet a bird that performs one of the most extraordinary courtship displays in the natural world, nearly went extinct in Victorian Britain, and helped create the conservation movement that saved it.#BIRDZNERDZ…
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Quick Coastal Guide the Birds.
Planning a seaside holiday this summer? Don't just sit on the beach—look up! Britain's coastline is full of extraordinary birds, and you don't need years of experience to spot them. Start with the familiar gulls, then discover the elegant Kittiwakes, the frantically-pacing Sanderlings running…
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Your Summer Beach Bird Guide #britishbirds #nature #birds #birdwatching #coastalwildlife #britishbirds #nature #birds #birdwatching #coastalwildlife #beach#summer
You'll spot gulls. But look closer, spot and see an elegant Kittiwake, and you've already learned something new.Those tiny birds running from the waves? Find out about the Sanderling, Turnstone, Oystercatcher. They're traveling thousands of miles to be here. Look Up at the Cliffs:Razorbill,...
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The Golden Eagles. The Kings Return
That shadow over the hillside? That's not a cloud. It's the Golden Eagle—Britain's most magnificent raptor, and it's coming home. Once hunted to extinction across England and Wales, Golden Eagles are now being reintroduced to northern landscapes they haven't soared over in centuries. With…
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It's been 600 years. And it just walked back in, The Stork
It hasn't nested in Britain since 1416. 🐦 The Stork — a metre tall, brilliant white, red bill like a scarlet spear — is back. Chicks hatched in Sussex in 2020 for the first time in over 600 years. Not because we forced it. Because the land was finally right again, and the instinct to come home…
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After 600 years The Stork Is Back. And It Has Plans #stork #storks #birds #birdznerdz #wildlife
It stood on a Sussex meadow last spring. White as a cloud, with jet-black wingtips and legs the colour of red brick. A metre tall. Looking, honestly, like it owned the place. 🐦 The White Stork. Back in Britain for the first time in over 600 years. Not forced here. Not managed here. Just — back....
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The bird that founded the RSPB, Goldfinch. #birds #wildlife #britishbirds #goldfinch #ukwildlife
In 1860, the town of Worthing trapped and sold 132,000 goldfinches in a single year. 🐦 A bird that weighs less than 20 grams — nearly wiped out because people couldn't resist that scarlet face and gold-flashed wing. The outrage helped found the RSPB. And it worked: the goldfinch is back, up over...
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Your Garden Is Alive With Voices 🐦
Seven birds. Seven voices. All of them singing in your garden right now. 🐦 The song thrush repeating its phrases like a bird that knows exactly what it wants to say. The starling borrowing sounds it really shouldn't know. The dunnock's thin, tumbling warble from the base of the hedge that most...
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The Most Recognisable Bird Sounds in Britain — Can You Name Them?
Close your eyes. Can you hear it? That sound drifting through your window — the one you've heard your whole life without ever knowing its name — has a story behind it. In this episode of BIRDZNERDZ, we take a listening journey through the most recognisable bird sounds in Britain: the blackbird's...
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Goldfinch,Its beauty nearly caused its extinction.
In 1860, in the town of Worthing alone, 132,000 goldfinches were captured and sold as cage birds in a single year. That is not a typo. One town. One year. 132,000 birds. The goldfinch was once the most sought-after bird in Britain's cage bird trade. The reason is not hard to understand. That…
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The Heron-The most patient Hunter
There is a bird standing at the edge of the river. It has been there for twenty minutes. It looks like a statue — but it is alive, it is concentrating, and at some point in the next few minutes it is going to move with a speed that will genuinely surprise you.In this episode of BIRDZNERDZ, we're...
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The Chip thief who inspired a Noble prize- Gulls
It stole your chips. It makes noise beside the bins. It has moved onto your roof and disturbed the entire street. But the gull — please don't call it a seagull, that word lumps fifty distinct species into one lazy label — is one of Britain's most underrated intelligent animals. Research has shown...
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Robin - The Thug life of Britain's favourite bird.
It appears on every Christmas card. It follows you around the garden. It has big dark eyes and a gentle red breast and looks like an old friend. But the real robin is nothing like that card suggests. This is one of Britain's most fiercely territorial small birds. It defends its territory...
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The Puffin on the postcard is lovely. The reality is extraordinary 🌊"
Everyone loves the puffin. But almost nobody knows the real one. 🌊 The beak that glows under UV light. The chick that leaves its burrow alone at night and finds the ocean by starlight. The bird that beats its wings 400 times a minute and dives 60 metres for fish. The postcard is lovely. The...
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The Toughest Bird you think you know - The Puffin
That beak isn't just colourful. It glows. 🌊 Under ultraviolet light — which puffins can see and we can't — the yellow ridges of a puffin's bill light up in brilliant cyan-green. What looks vivid to us looks luminous to them. And that's just the start. The puffin dives to 60 metres, can carry 60...
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The Bird that came back - Osprey
The Osprey on BIRDZNERDZ quickfire look at Britain's most dramatic conservation comeback — the fishing raptor that corrects for physics, grips prey with velcro feet, and came back from extinction because enough people wanted it to. Full Episode out now. #BIRDZ #Osprey #BritishBirds #BirdsOfPrey...
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The Bird that Defied extinction
It was gone. Not rare — gone. 🦅 The last confirmed breeding Osprey in Britain was recorded in 1916. Hunted by gamekeepers, robbed by egg collectors, erased from these islands within a single human lifetime. And then, in 1954, a pair appeared at Loch Garten. Nobody put them there. They just came...
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The most dangerous week of a birds life.
That bird sitting on your lawn isn't injured. It isn't lost. It isn't abandoned. It's a fledgling — and right now, all over Britain, millions of them are doing exactly the same thing: surviving the most dangerous window in a bird's entire life. In this short, we follow a fledgling robin from nest...
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A hunter of extraordinary patience, Heron
The grey heron hasn't moved in twenty minutes. That's notvacancy — that's precision. 🦤 The neck is held in a compressed S-shape like a coiled spring.The eyes are reading the water through refraction. And when the moment comes,the strike is faster than a human blink. Full episode on BIRDZ 🎙️...
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It passed a test only humans and great apes had passed before - The Magpie
The Magpie is an episode of @BIRDZNERDZ where we get to meet one of Britain's most misunderstood birds — a corvid so cognitively sophisticated that it passed a test previously failed by every non-human animal on Earth, and whose reputation for theft, bad luck, and songbird murder turns out to be...
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One For Wonder.Truth About the Magpie #birds #wildlife #nature #magpies #britishbirds #naturelovers
The Magpie is a quickfire look at the bird on your fence post — why it's one of the most intelligent animals in Europe, why almost everything you've been told about it is wrong, and why it's almost certainly been watching you for longer than you realise full episode out now on @birdznerdz....
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The Bird that conquered the Car Parks - The Wagtail
The Wagtail is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet three birds that couldn't be more different — one that's conquered every car park and rooftop in Britain, one that needs clean fast-flowing rivers to survive, and one that's quietly disappearing from the countryside it once lit up like a…
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The most confident bird in Britain. And you've been ignoring it
Britain's most confident urban bird, roosting in its thousands above the high street on winter nights, and wagging that tail at anything that dares to watch. #BIRDZBERDZ #PiedWagtail #Wagtail #BritishBirds #UKWildlife #BirdwatchingUK #GardenBirds #NaturePodcast #BirdsOfInstagram #WildlifeUK...
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The Birds outside your window right now @birdz
Nine birds. One garden. All of them extraordinary. 🌿 The sparrowhawk threading through your garden at full speed. The blackcap singing like it's auditioning for the nightingale. The starling performing a murmuration of half a million birds — and still declining. The greenfinch losing 77% of its...
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Hidden Wildlife that's closer than you think.
Six birds. One canal. All of them extraordinary. 🌊 The moorhen with its snowshoe feet. The coot that can identify its own chicks. The great crested grebe performing one of the most spectacular courtship dances in the natural world. The kingfisher's electric blue flash. The pied wagtail pumping…
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One breeding female left. In the whole of England- The Red Kite.
In 1989, there was one successfully breeding female red kite left in the whole of England and Scotland. One. 🦅 Today the UK holds 17% of the entire world population. The red kite was exterminated from two countries, protected by a handful of dedicated people for over a century, and brought back...
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The Bird That Came Back From the Dead.
The Red Kite is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet the bird that once cleaned the streets of Shakespeare's London, was hunted to near extinction, and is now soaring above the M40 in numbers that nobody thought possible 30 years ago.#BIRDZ #RedKite #BritishBirds #UKWildlife #BirdwatchingUK...
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The Bird That Built Britain's Forests -The Jay.
Every oak tree you've ever walked under may owe its existence to a single bird. The Jay doesn't just cache acorns — it remembers where it buried thousands of them, uses landmarks to find them again months later, and when it forgets, it plants a forest. This is the bird that built Britain's...
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The Jay: Architect of the Ancient Woodland
This is the bird that built Britain's woodlands. And it's doing it right now. Full episode on @wrenbirdz #birdwatching #birdlovers #birds #britishbirds #ukwildlife #corvid #BIRDZ #naturepodcast #birdpodcast #ornithology #jay #jaybird #corvids #corvidae #oakwoodland #britishwildlife #wildlifeuk...
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How to keep feeding the birds now that the RSPB has recommend we take feeders down.
Ditch the Feeder is the episode of @BIRDZ where we find out how to keep feeding the birds now that the RSPB has recommended taking feeders down between May and October. We look at the best plants to grow — sunflowers, teasels, ivy, milk thistle and wild thistles — what soil conditions they need,...
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Out and About. Top five Countryside spots
If you manage to get out and about her are five birds to look out for. 🌾 The buzzard soaring on thermal currents overhead. The skylark climbing vertically into the sky, singing all the way up. The swallow threading between hedgerows on its way back from Africa. The kestrel hanging motionless in...
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From Near Extinction to Your City Centre
The fastest reliably recorded stoop of a peregrine falcon was 389 kilometres per hour. It steers like a guided missile, hits like a punch at full speed, and was nearly wiped out by a single pesticide within living memory. It recovered. It moved into our cities. And right now, one is probably...
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The Fastest Animal on Earth - The Peregrine Falcon
The fastest reliably recorded stoop of a peregrine falcon was 389 kilometres per hour. It steers like a guided missile, hits like a punch at full speed, and was nearly wiped out by a single pesticide within living memory. It recovered. It moved into our cities. And right now, one is probably...
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Stop and look at the Water.
Five birds. One riverbank. All of them extraordinary. 🌊 The kingfisher, the heron, the sand martin, the little egret — and the mallard, with the most irresistible ducklings in Britain. The waterside is one of the richest wildlife habitats we have, and most of us walk past it every day without...
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Top Ten Town singers.
You don't need to go far to hear something incredible. Step outside in any British town and you're surrounded by song — if you know what to listen for.Here are 10 bird calls you've almost certainly heard but might not have been able to name:🐦 Robin — that rich, melancholy warble drifting through...
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You think migration is over by June. It isn't.
Some of Britain's rarest and most extraordinary summer visitors are only just arriving — right now, this month. A flycatcher with perfect aerial precision. A warbler whose song shimmers through ancient oak woodland. A thrush that climbs mountains to breed. A dove whose purring call is…
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The Night Hunters of Britain 🦉
The Owls is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet the Barn Owl and the Tawny Owl — birds that hunt in total darkness, recognise their neighbours by voice, and have been woven into human mythology for as long as we've been paying attention to the night.#BIRDZ #BarnOwl #TawnyOwl #BritishOwls…
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Nobody knows where they go in winter.
We get to meet the bird that crosses continents to raise its family right above your bedroom window — and why it's struggling to find the one thing it needs most: mud. #BIRDZ #HouseMartin #BritishBirds #UKWildlife #BirdwatchingUK #SummerVisitors #NaturePodcast #BirdsOfInstagram #BirdConservation...
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They Come From Africa to Build Above Your Door. The Martins
They fly thousands of miles from Africa to be here. One builds its home from a thousand pellets of mud, right above your bedroom window. The other carves an entire city into a cliff face with nothing but its feet and its bill. The Martins is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet the House…
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The bullet train bird, The Kingfisher.
The Kingfisher is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet a bird so precisely engineered that its beak inspired the design of Japan's bullet train — and find out how it hunts underwater while correcting for the laws of physics in real time.#BIRDZ #Kingfisher #BritishBirds #UKWildlife...
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The Bird that inspired the bullet train.
The Kingfisher is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet a bird so precisely engineered that its beak inspired the design of Japan's bullet train — and find out how it hunts underwater while correcting for the laws of physics in real time. #BIRDZ #Kingfisher #BritishBirds #UKWildlife...
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House Sparrow
The House Sparrow is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet the most familiar bird in Britain — its extraordinary history, its surprising decline, and what we can actually do about it. #BIRDZ #HouseSparrow #BritishBirds #UKWildlife #BirdwatchingUK #BritishWildlife #GardenBirds #NaturePodcast...
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This tiny bird is racing against climate change 🐛
The Tits is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet five of Britain's most recognisable small birds — and discover that behind those familiar faces lies surprising intelligence, extraordinary nest-building, and a race against climate change playing out in your garden every spring. #BIRDZ…
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One of Britian's smartest birds.
The Gulls is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet three of Britain's most familiar and most misunderstood birds — the Black-headed, Common and Herring Gull — and find out that the bird stealing your chips is one of the most intelligent animals in the country The Gulls episode of @BIRDZ is out...
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The Chip Thief With a Nobel Prize Connection
The herring gull knows when you're watching it. 👁️ It reads human body language, uses bait to lure fish, performs a rain dance to trick earthworms out of the ground, and passes learned behaviours down through generations. It's also lost 50% of its population since the 1970s. The Gulls episode of...
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Your Bird Feeder Might Be Killing This Bird
The Finches is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet five British finches — and discover how a well-meaning bird feeder became one of the biggest threats to a bird that was a garden staple just twenty years ago, full episode on @birdz. #BIRDZ #Finches #Greenfinch #Goldfinch #Chaffinch…
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The Genius on Your Garden Fence that carries the weight of World Peace.
The Doves is an episode of BIRDZ where we get to meet the Woodpigeon and the Collared Dove — birds that can navigate by magnetic fields, see colours humans can't, and may be smarter than a five-year-old.🕊️ #BIRDZ #Woodpigeon #CollaredDove #BritishBirds #UKWildlife #BirdwatchingUK…
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About this show
The robin in your garden can see the Earth's magnetic field. The jay on your fence post has been quietly building Britain's oak forests for thousands of years. The swift over your street hasn't landed in two years.These are the birds you see every day. And most people have no idea what they're actually doing.I'm Wren, and this is BIRDZNERDZ — a British birds podcast that takes the familiar and makes it extraordinary. Every episode, one bird, the full story.New episodes every Thursday and Sunday. Subscribe — and remember to look out and look up. 🐦
Hosted by
Wren