What we do
We are passionate about educating the public in the UK and world-wide in all things ornithological including avian systematics, taxonomy and species distributions. We provide a platform for the publication of open-access scientific information, via the Bulletin, as well as hosting discussions on key ornithological issues.
Publications
In 2020 we published, in the Checklist series, The Birds of Cuba. It is obvious, we think, that such a book should be available in Spanish, the language of Cuba, for the benefit (and pleasure) of all of its population, as well as many people in the wider Caribbean and South American region. For this reason, it’s a pleasure to make this available in an accessible PDF format. The essential parts of the text was translated by two of the original authors, Andy Mitchell and Arturo Kirkconnell and proofed by Nathaly O’Farrill. The translated version is available here.
Bulletin
The BOC produces a Bulletin four times a year in an open access online format available for viewing and downloading at BioOne. The list of the table of contents of each issue is available at the Bulletin Index page where you will also find the contents from earlier issue. These are available to view on the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) website.
The BOC Bulletin is available for viewing or download. You can view the table of contents, abstracts and references, full text or downloadable PDFs of individual papers as well as the complete issue at the BioOne Complete website.
Upcoming Meetings 2026
Monday 23 March 2026; 30 Years in the Tower
Speaker: George Candelin, Keeper of the Swifts at Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH).
Location: Upstairs room at the Barley Mow, 104 Horseferry Rd, London SW1P 2EE. Doors: 6.00 pm for a 6:30 pm start.
George Candelin will describe his work as Keeper of Swifts in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History Tower.
For more information please visit the upcoming meetings page.
CASE Studentship
The British Ornithologists’ Club is pleased to announce its role as a CASE* project partner and financial supporter for a new PhD studentship at the University of Oxford. The project will be supervised by Dr Steve Portugal (a BOC trustee) and will be carried out at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, at The University of Oxford. The project is titled ‘Eyes in the Sky: Predicting Bird Collision Risks Through Visual Field Analysis and Flock Behaviour’ and aims to better understand why certain bird species are more prone to collisions with human-made structures, while others tend to avoid them. Sam Thompson will begin his PhD this October, based at the Department of Biological Sciences and St Edmund Hall College. Sam completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Exeter, before undertaking his MSc at Royal Holloway College, The University of London. For the last three years, Sam has been working as an outdoor biology tutor for the Field Studies Council and is a keen birder.
The project aims to fuse traditional field studies with laboratory-based experiments, using the extensive bird flight facilities at Oxford University’s John Krebs Research Station, Wytham. In collaboration with Professors Graham Taylor and Graham Martin, we aim to gain a much better understanding of the sensory ecology underlying bird collisions with human-made objects. Sam is due to complete his PhD in the summer of 2029, and the BOC will be providing regular updates through its newsletter, as the project progresses.
* Council for Advancement and Support of Education : https://www.case.org
See also Sam Thompson’s blog.
Blog
We publish blog posts which tell the stories of papers published in the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club and look at pertinent issues in ornithology. We have also published a series of blogs which document the biographies of the founders of The BOC as well as publishing interviews with authors on a wide range of ornithological titles from family monographs, cutting edge field identification guides to lighter books on simply enjoying birds and nature.
Read the latest blog posts here: