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I have now seen most of the returning spring migrants that i would expect to see locally with the exceptions of garden warbler, lesser whitethroat and hobby.
My first swift on Saturday, at my local patch of Stanwick Lakes, was not particularly early or late – but I also saw my first house martins of the year on that day (which is very late) and a marsh harrier too.
In the middle of last week I went for a walk on an old airfield as I was awake early in the morning and it had rained over night. I was hoping there might be a few grounded migrants to see and there were – six wheatears pausing on their way north to Scotland or perhaps onwards to Greenland. And a yellow wagtail added itself to my year list by flying over and calling.
And although I haven’t seen a cuckoo yet this year I heard one on 21 April. My glimpses of bird migration through local walks make me happy. It’s spring! Birds are coming back and song is filling our woods and fields again.
But I also keep glancing at the BTO cuckoo webpage – it is just fantastic! And the individual movements of these individual birds begin to add spice and detail to our knowledge of bird migration. There are five cuckoos up and running.
Cuckoo Chris appears to be happily quaffing champagne near Epernay – I’ve done that too!
Cuckoo David did something very interesting. After getting to the area near the attractive town of Sherborne on the Dorset/Somerset border, where I remember visiting an attractive cafe a few years ago, he has headed back to France and settled near Tours – an example of reverse migration (or changing your mind). What’s wrong with Sherborne, David? And what has put you off heading back to Tregaron in mid-Wales?
Cuckoo BB spent some time near Ramacastanas in central Spain – and I hope he saw azure-winged magpies, and Spanish imperial eagle there like I have in the past – but is now not a million miles away from Chris, although a little closer to Blois where the chateau is definitely worth a look.
Cuckoo Chris is still in Morocco.
Cuckoo Chance is back in the Trossachs! There’s nothing wrong with the Trossachs but my most recent memory of them was when a landslip meant that my overnight train to Glasgow was delayed and I missed a flight to Islay, and so spent the next night in a very tartan hotel in the Trossachs with RSPB Scotland colleagues where we all, let’s be honest, wished we were on Islay!
I’ll be following the fate of these cuckoos over the next few weeks – even from the USA. The details of their lives fascinate me. Five cuckoos, all in the UK last year and at the moment spread between Morocco and Scotland. Have a look at the site yourself – these five cuckoos may all have moved again by now. There may be one flying over your house right now?
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So that was April! Coldest on record in so many countries. Great Tit nest building on 30th for the first time. One gent reported many birds resemble records based in the 1960s!! Butterflies don’t look any better. 1 Peacock yesterday and a bee fly. Scotland calls again. I hope it warms up. Come on Global Warming!!
John – be careful what you wish for – weakening thermohaline circulation from melting polar ice dumping cold fresh water in the northern seas, is one possible (and only one and only possible, but possible!) impact of global warming. I know it’s counter intuitive but more global warming could be leading to more cold dry winters and cool wet summers for these islands.
I’ve been following migration through France & northern Spain again this year – and very interesting its been. Would you believe I was watching a full blown spring with Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Swallow and House Martin on the Loire on 22nd April ? Roughly 400 miles from Northants, I think, and yet the House Martins haven’t made it yet !
I think its a brilliant site – I’ve become addicted to it over the last year. Its one of three sites I check regularly in my favorites (sic) along with MarkAvery.info and raptorpersecutionscotland.
Heard my first (and only so far), cuckoo near Dunkeld on Saturday along with redstart, green woodpecker, and tawny owl!
Have the swallows come and gone?
Saw my first swifts last Saturday, and reed warbler, whitethroat, cuckoo & house martin on Sunday, on Thorney Island, Hants. Haven’t heard any redstarts yet, though they arrived on the Sussex coast early April. I don’t usually pick up garden warbler (having gone through the annual blackcap vs garden w. song revision!) and spotted fly until later in May. Re-cuckoos & BTO, we had Dr Andy Clements (BTO Director) speak at the recent Hants OS Members’ Day, and he gave a brilliant talk on their studies of migratory birds – highly recommended for bird clubs etc! I am leading a dawn chorus walk in West Dean woods (W Sussex) next Sat, so hoping for redstart & wood warbler then.
My sponsored cuckoo, Lloyd, is still loafing around in the Atlas mountains in Morocco! Our local cuckoo has been back since April 17th. Perhaps I should send Lloyd another tenner to encourage him!
Good news, turtle dove calling today on our RSPB reserve. Off this evening to look for woodcock in the BTO/GWCT survey. Not very hopeful.
I too sponsored Lloyd. The google map showed him loitering around my local Morgan’s Hill reserve, Wiltshire, last spring. Obviously he’s still a long way away from Wiltshire, but some of his friends have been heard around the reserve. Not by me though, unfortunately.
Maybe for some reason Cuckoo’s are forsaking U K for foreign climes as when in Tuscany for a week 16th to 23rd April we would hear a Cuckoo calling more or less most of the time and we regularly saw them most days if not every day.
What worries me though is the current numbers of Swifts,Swallows,Hmartins&Smartins that have returned so far and how late. On one site I photograph during the summer months we normally get around 20 swallows, this time last year they were already sitting on nests, so far this year just 2 male birds. Our swifts that normally are flying over the estate by now…not one! Obviously last years wet summer (and judging from the long range forecasts ain’t going to be much drier this summer) had an impact and unfavourable start to the year has had impact but in my short time birding I haven’t seen it this quiet, has anyone with more experience then me recall a similar/worse situation? Even the Little Ringed Plovers at the reserve haven’t showed yet, normally right about now they’ve paired up and protecting their nesting sites.
Douglas.
This may help.
http://btomigrationblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/migration-getting-back-to-normal.html?m=1
(And for that matter the most recent post, dated 26th April).
Douglas – one of the saddest things for me in recent years has been the decline in house martins, they seem to arrive fewer and later each year. For example the thriving colony we had on the suburban housing estate in Berkshire where I grew up seemed decimated by the time we left in 2002. Of course this is anecdotal and the link on Doug Mack D’s comment was interesting to read; I know disruption to populations and migration in individual “extreme” years is one thing, longer term changes (mostly it seems in the wrong direction) another…
We had the same thing around here with Housemartins, our estate,Thorplands and Southfields used to get Housemartins every year but guess who knocked them down year after year (2008-2011)…the local council!!! Any prosecutions? Nope, sadly I never got a response from a certain “bird protecting” NGO despite photo’s of before and after. Now they no longer atttempt to build nests:( Even when I go to Welford reservoir there is a rather nice house opposite the the local shop who also likes to knock down their nests, but do you think I can get anyone to listen….I’m sorry I give up, from know on it seems the best way forward for me is just to shut up and not bother no more. Mind you in another village/hamlet they have bets to see how many Housemartins and Swallows they get nesting with the loser buying drinks in the pub….I like that:)
Douglas – I like that too! When I moved to Devon house martins used to nest in the eaves at the front of a favourite pub just outside Cullompton, seemingly tolerated by the landlady and unfazed by drinkers in the front garden. No idea if they still do. (By co-incidence the pub served beers from Somerset brewers Cotleigh named after various BOPs, Tawny, Old Buzzard etc. … very nice!)
That’s a shocker about the nests being removed. I knew of householders taking down old nests outside the breeding season in my old manor (how very short-sighted of them) but not of illegally disturbing birds actually nesting.
Now I’ve moved to Bedfordshire I’d like one day to have a house martin’s nest to show our daughter. Here’s hoping.
MK.
I now own an ex council house in suburban Berkshire. When we moved in, the long standing neighbours (on finding out a little but of what I do) told me that house martins used to nest under every eaves, but the local corvids just took them out, year after year. Now there are none.
Well…. That’s what I was told anyway.
Doug – that’s interesting. We had quite a healthy population of crows and magpies where we lived (Wokingham) but I didn’t ever see them predating nesting house martins. That’s not to say they didn’t, but I’d have thought there’d be easier ways for a hungry corvid to get a meal than hang upside down to get under the eaves when there’s plenty of litter/roadkill/dopey young blackbirds around. Of course I have a soft spot for the corvids as well, so I would say that wouldn’t I …
I used to read that house sparrows sometimes took over martin nests and we had plenty of them too, of course they have now declined too nationally (don’t know how they’re doing round where I used to live).
Anyway, thanks for responding!
Below is a quote concerning swifts breeding success (?) in the tower of the Natural History Museum in Oxford in 2012. This ongoing survey is fascinating and the progress can be followed on their website
“All remaining chicks have fledged. This means that only 14 chicks fledged this year, the poorest total for decades. The reason was clearly the weather, with the wettest June on record, which resulted in many birds abandoning their breeding attempts. In all, nests were started in 32 boxes this year, and completed in 28, although some birds then failed to lay, others deserted at the egg stage, and yet some even after chicks had hatched. Although this is disappointing, we need to remember that swifts are long-lived birds, and as such can ‘afford’ to skip breeding in some years in order to improve their own chances of surviving to the following year.”
Richard. Having filmed breeding swifts at one spot for a number of years, it must be said that last year was the worst year in memory for swifts. Many (including my old pair) didn’t bother trying to raise young, the weather was that poor.
Hope we have a much better year this year… And we can all help by providing these superb birds somewhere to nest.
Mark, some of the birds seen or heard on thorne moors today, willow warbler, whitethroat, sedge warbler, cuckoo, hobby, chiff chaff.
No doubt about it, spring is always an absolute delight whenever it arrives. My abiding memory of this one will be appreciating ash trees coming into flower as never before (haven’t they read the papers?) and skylarks singing incredibly loudly above the construction traffic on our estate. Whatever the threats, whatever the odds, nature simply does not know how to give up.
Yesterday evening there was the treat of a mistle thrush and a male blackcap staging a singing competition in a very tall lime tree near our office. The mistle thrush has been particularly vocal and very fine this year but the blackcap won on points, as it was on a still bare branch low down in the tree in full sun and against a clear blue sky – the easiest bit of bird identification ever.
If Simon Cowell had been walking past the blackcap and the mistle thrush would probably both have a record deal by now!
Sadly Simon doesn’t recognise real talent so probably would say “heard it before big deal blah blah” 🙂