My Birding Life

Recorded live from the Winchat Podcasting Stage at Global Bird Fair 2026, sponsored by Swarovski Optik, this episode is the first of two shows Chris recorded in front of an audience at the fair.

His guest is Nick Acheson, naturalist, writer, broadcaster, and a regular contributor to BBC Springwatch, known for pairing sharp field knowledge with a genuine gift for storytelling. Nick is based in North Norfolk, where he's a passionate advocate for conservation, and is the author of two books: The Meaning of Geese (2023 East Anglian Book of the Year) and This Wild Dream.

The...

Simon Owen is a Manchester-based filmmaker and photographer, the founder of Standby Productions, and the creative force behind Wildest Ones, a YouTube series that interviews people whose lives have been shaped by wildlife and the natural world. In this episode, Simon talks Chris through a childhood spent on RSPB stopovers with his dad, a detour through skateboard filmmaking that quietly taught him the patience wildlife photography demands, and the string of hard years, a business hit hard by COVID, a breakup, that sent him back outdoors and, eventually, into making Wildest Ones.

The conversation covers the three-chapter...

Beth Sheils has built a brilliant corner of the birding world on Instagram under the name Beth The Bird Nerd, helping people, whatever their experience level, get outside and fall in love with what's around them. In this episode, her first ever podcast interview, Beth talks Chris through a birding life that started on canal walks with her dad in Bootle, the British Bird Quest she's steadily working through, and why she'd rather watch the pigeons in her garden than chase something flashy.

The conversation covers her Instagram journey, the mental health lift she gets from getting...

Becca Heywood is a third-generation birder. She learned to watch birds alongside both her father and her grandfather and today she's turning that inheritance into something new, sharing South London's urban wildlife with the world. By day she works in inclusion and equity at WWF-UK, and that same lens shows up throughout this conversation with Chris.

Chris and Becca trace her path from childhood trips down the M5 spotting buzzards, through a teenage stretch of quietly shelving the hobby for fear of not being "cool," to relaunching her passion at the very end of 2025 as a way...

This week Chris is joined by wildlife filmmaker, presenter and storyteller Simon McCabe, who has spent over 30 years behind the camera bringing the natural world to life — from the British countryside to the wilds of Botswana. Simon writes, shoots, edits and narrates all of his own films, and his YouTube channel has become a go-to for anyone who wants their birding served up with genuine warmth and a great voice for it.

Chris and Simon trace Simon's path from childhood fishing trips and watercolour painting, through photography and into filmmaking, before diving into stories from the field — a pa...

Kirsty Costa didn't grow up with binoculars around her neck. Her birding life began in the first week of Melbourne's pandemic lockdown, on a dawn walk with her dog when a strange, wide-eyed shorebird appeared in the reeds of her local wetland. It turned out to be a Latham's snipe, a species that migrates every year between Japan and Australia, and something about that discovery, a bird she'd never known was living on her doorstep, changed how she saw the world around her.

That single sighting became Weekend Birder, now one of the most-listened-to science and nature...

He's one of the most recognisable names in birding and he's spent 20 years making the case that you don't need to travel to wild, remote places to find birds worth watching. You just need to look up.

Born and raised in Wembley, North London, David Lindo taught himself to bird as a child with no mentor and no one around him who shared the interest. That self-taught curiosity became a mission: get people living in urban areas connected to nature through birds, wherever they are in the world.

Along the way he's been named one...

What happens when someone who listens for a living turns their ears to the natural world? Branwen Munn is a professional DJ, music producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in West Wales and a birder with an infectious passion for the outdoors. In 2024, she embarked on a Big Year alongside her parents, travelling the length and breadth of the UK in search of as many species as possible. In 2026, the National Trust chose her to front their year of community birding events across West Wales, leading walks, spotlighting a Bird of the Month, and building something genuinely special along the way.<...

Jon Mason has spent almost four decades as a geography teacher, an Opticron ambassador, and to a growing audience on Instagram, sharing early morning birding moments from Otmoor and beyond.

In this episode, Chris sits down with John to talk about a fascination with birds that started before he could walk, why he calls himself a birder rather than a birdwatcher, and how a heart attack a decade ago changed the way he spends his time. From spider's webs at sunrise to a nightingale nobody could see, this is a conversation about noticing more, rushing less, and...

Suzy Buttress has been hosting the Casual Birder podcast for nearly nine years, built entirely around the idea that birding should be enjoyable, accessible, and welcoming to everyone.

In this episode, Chris sits down with a fellow podcaster to hear how a childhood dream of being Snow White with birds on her hand turned into a 1,085-species world list, a husband she's converted into a bigger birder than herself, and a gentle but very real competition over who gets to 191 first.

From a wooden spoon worm-feeding contraption to paradise riflebirds in Australia to a missed...

Tim Appleton MBE has spent decades shaping British birding, from building Rutland Water Nature Reserve from green fields to international acclaim, to co-founding the Global Birdfair to leading one of the UK's greatest conservation success stories: bringing ospreys back to England for the first time since 1847.

In this episode, Chris sits down with Tim to hear the personal side of that remarkable journey — how the Bird Fair was born from a visit to the Game Fair at Belvoir Castle, what it was actually like to show up to a job where the reserve didn't exist yet, and wh...

Most people don't go looking for birding. It finds them.

In this first episode, host Chris shares how a period of serious burnout brought him outside and how watching birds quietly changed everything.

That's the story behind My Birding Life, a brand new podcast where real birders share the moments, places, and birds that shaped them.

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