Matt Eade

Our website is now live!! It’s still a work in progress, but the baseline is there and we’re ready to welcome you to the Highlands from this spring for the region’s Odonata, and much more. Please visit highlanddragonflytours.com, and book your day trip or weekend now!

Join us this spring, summer, and early autumn to explore the remote Scottish Highlands in search of some of the most prized species of Odonata in the UK. Expect superb wildlife, stunning views, and homemade cakes! Email us at info@highlanddragonflytours.com for availability.

@nickybond007 Sorry to hear this news, Nick.

We lost a birding legend today, my uncle Gary (Messenbird) passed away after several health issues this morning, a Beddington and Surrey legend and a big influence on my birding life, something I will be forever grateful for ! He will be missed @SurreyBirdNews @LeeEvansBirding

@AddeyNick Quite easily the best woodcreeper!

Scimitar-billed Woodcreeper Ceibas today. #Argentina

@SmalePerry It is, darn I thought I’d captioned them

@_MattEade Aah bad luck. Is the pitta Mangrove?

Back home this morning from a seven-day birding trip to Bangladesh, where the undoubted highlights came from the Sundarbans. Only nine lifers for me this trip, but these do include the doomed Masked Finfoot and range-restricted White-eared Night Heron!

@fred_fearn Thanks Fred. I wouldn’t usually be so negative, but there are too many factors going against them, with already so few remaining.

@_MattEade Great shots Matt, love the heron. Tragic if finfoot really is doomed. Saw 3 in S Thailand and 1 in Malaysia in the 90s, really sad to know they’ve collapsed since then - blink of an eye.

@SmalePerry Sadly not, but some incredible fresh pug marks, roughly 1-2 hours old! They are there in great abundance, but as secretive as ever! The SE section of Sundarbans is apparently the best location.

@_MattEade Any tigers?

@01000011S He’s extended his trip in India so it’ll have to hang on another few days for him 😬

Photos below, bar the night heron, taken by @erichens11. The trip kindly put together by @Ashley_Howe1990, using the services of Pugmark Tours & Travels, the go-to agent for seeking out the Masked Finfoot.

With ears finely tuned while shopping in Inverness today with @erichens11, it was a joy to hear and then see a Waxwing fly over. Hopefully not the last of the winter! @WaxwingsUK

@BEACHYBIRDER Fairly sure Grass Snake was/is the identity

@_MattEade Remember those shots, Adder?

I recently reacquainted myself with a 'lost' memory card, and hidden in amongst were these Short-toed Eagle photos taken on Ashdown Forest (East Sussex). Of the 330 species I saw in the county before moving to the Highlands, this was the stand-out bird by far!

@Mayfieldbirder @SussexOrnitholo Which wheatear?

@rothiemoon Would love to know, John. I suspect Brora or maybe at an obvious feature between the two, but probably not Helms. 🤷‍♂️

@_MattEade @ja_tobias @BirdGuides That was a pretty good call 👍🏼. Wonder where it was roosting.

Operation Needletail commences in Helmsdale 🤞🤞

@SdGoog Thanks Steve. Yeh that’ll be brilliant. Do let us know 👍

@_MattEade Mate I've only just seen thus post, we been in Bulgaria for awhile and now in Spain. Congratulations from me and Julie, so happy for you. Hopefully we'll get up your way in the motorhome at some point and share a day or two of birding.

A cracking weekend away along and above our favourite loch – Loch Maree! A certain question was asked (and accepted) here, before camping and then ascending Slioch (981m)! Couldn’t have asked for a better weekend alongside my wife to be! Ring Ouzels, Golden Eagles etc also seen.

My take on today’s White-throated Needletail off Helmsdale: seafordbirding.blogspot.com/2025/10/white-…

@ja_tobias @BirdGuides Well, it was seen 10 miles down the road last night, so plucked on Helmsdale being a likely location. So there was some form of maths involved 😂

@_MattEade @BirdGuides are you telling me you settled in to look for the needletail at an obscure coastal town in Sutherland and it flew past you 20 mins later? absolutely magnificent roll of the dice!

@theboygriffin We live in Highland now, so plucked on Helmsdale from first light… boom!

@_MattEade Were you already up there?