A time of change at British Birds

After many months of working on strategy and operational plans, we’ve started to roll out a number of changes, such as greater involvement from our assistant editorial staff in the production of the journal – submissions of papers may well be met with a reply from Assistant Editor Thom Shannon, who is working alongside Caroline Dudley; an expanded customer-support team – as well as our Subscriptions Manager Hazel Jenner, you may also receive emails from our Support Officer Sam Haggan; and a soon-to-be-implemented social-media strategy (including, of course, updates on news from British Birds), building on the output that Dan Rouse has posted on our channels over the last 14 months.

The biggest change, though, is the departure of Editor Stephen Menzie who, after almost five years in the job, is retiring from the role. As part of the structural changes at British Birds, the role of Editor will be superseded by an Editor & Content Manager role, better reflecting the wide range of work that is undertaken at British Birds beyond just editing the journal. We’re very pleased to announce that, from mid September 2025, the role of Editor & Content Manager will be filled by Sarah Harris.

The last few months have not been without their challenges – in June, our long-term printers, Swallowtail, went into liquidation. Since then, delivery times of the journal have slipped far from the first-of-the-month target for the delivery. Rest assured, however, that we’re working hard to get the production schedule back on track and, with the BBRC report coming out in October, the RBBP report in November, and an already-packed issue lined up for December, there’s plenty to look forward to over the next few months.

We’d like to thank all you, our readers, for bearing with us and for your much-valued ongoing support,

The BB Team