WINTER’S WILDLIFE Tune into our autumn visitors
Spring’s dawn chorus boasts the best bird chart toppers, but autumn also has an atmospheric playlist. Listen out, day or night, and the skies will chime with the calls of migratory birds.
Many songbirds have flight notes to keep in contact with their flock as they head over land and sea. The sounds are invariably short and sharp and can be confounding to birdwatchers.
It is easier to learn the songs of a skylark, meadow pipit or chaffinch than to memorise the split-second squeaks given by them on the wing.
We think of November night skies as dominated by the crackles and pops of fireworks, yet listen carefully and you’ll hear the gentle sighs of thousands of redwings flying overhead on their travels from the dense forests of Scandinavia and Siberia. It’s a relaxing sound likened to red hot pokers being plunged into cold water.
Daytime landscapes also ring with redwing flight calls as well as the harsh “chacks” of fieldfares, fellow thrushes on the same journey to avoid the northern winter.
Another satisfying flight call that will have me looking upwards in coming weeks is that of the siskin.
There’s something uplifting about the approach of a flock of these tiny finches bounding over like emerald gemstones with their cheery notes. Bird books describe siskins as having two whistled calls, one descending and the other rising.
I used to think siskin was an onomatopoeic translation of the call note but, in fact, the bird derives its name from the word siska – Swedish for chirp.
Numbers of siskins in the UK have increased by more than 30% to 455,000 nesting pairs in recent years, largely because of a range expansion into forested areas in the south and west of the country.
Each autumn, these numbers are boosted by a large influx of birds from the Low Countries and Scandinavia, all anxious to announce their arrival by calling out sweetly.
‘‘ The number of siskins in the UK has risen 30% to 455,000 nesting pairs