Dancing Brave had the greatest finishing speed as he proved in the 1986 Arc against the greatest field since Sea Bird.

BBC: SPORT | Other Sport | Horse Racing | Grandstand: Have Your Say | Your all-time favourite racehorses

Veteran conservationist Roy Dennis visits one of the biggest seasonal spectacles, a sea bird colony, and finds out why they might need help.

BBC: Springwatch returns to Ynys-hir reserve in mid Wales

An appeal for volunteers has been launched in the Isle of Man in an effort to eradicate the rat population on a small bird sanctuary in the Irish Sea.

BBC: Calf of Man islet rat-cull project calls for volunteers

Historically, all the expensive and most sought-after food ingredients have been those with purported health benefits - consider bird's nest soup or sea cucumber.

BBC: Viewpoint: Asia's evolving taste for wine

Rivers flowing to the sea, a flame reaching upward, a bird homing: these movements all represent objects yearning to be their true selves, to achieve their true state.

NEWYORKER: The Region of Unlikeness

Located off the southern tip of the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, the Calf of Man has been a bird observatory since 1959.

BBC: Calf of Man islet rat-cull project calls for volunteers

Bird watching is especially popular in northern Israel, where the varied climates of the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon provide lush habitats for hundreds of thousands of birds, including the endangered Marbled Teal, whose only breeding havens are located here.

BBC: Where birds know no borders