Get Birding Birds in Danger
Apr 15, 2026
David Gray, singer-songwriter turned nature activist, speaks about using music to rally curlew conservation. Mary Colwell, founder of World Curlew Day, recounts her 500-mile walk and campaign work. Robert Macfarlane, nature writer, reads evocative bird passages and reflects on field guides. Jim Moir, artist and comedian, links close observation in art to caring for species. They discuss curlew decline, cultural loss, art and practical conservation.
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Painting Forces Prolonged Looking At Birds
- Jim Moir describes painting only what he has seen and how painting forces prolonged looking that deepens place-knowledge.
- He says painting on location or after visiting a site gives him intimate understanding of landscape and birds.
Childhood Field Guide Sparked Lifelong Bird Love
- Robert Macfarlane recounts buying a Reader's Digest field guide as a child and how field guides shaped his lifelong relationship with birds.
- He and Jackie Morris spent eight years creating The Book of Birds with 300 new paintings to reimagine identification as empathy.
Scale And Causes Of Bird Decline
- Europe lost 600 million breeding birds since 1980, driven by disease, climate change, pesticides, and intensive farming.
- Robert Macfarlane frames this as an age of loss and argues art and books can reconnect people to birds and inspire change.
