WEATHER
If the complexity of feather tracts and the bewildering array of calls befuddles the brain, it is perhaps nothing compared to understanding the importance of weather and the way in which it can affect the prospects for discovering rare arrivals. ‘Weather bombs’, high pressures, the Jet Stream, fast-moving Atlantic lows, they all have a bearing on what turns up around our shores. Knowing how warm weather systems can displace springtime Mediterranean wanderers like Hoopoes, Red-rumped Swallows and Bee-eaters is, once you’ve cracked it, fun. Ditto the way in which you can foresee just how autumn storms that whizz across the Atlantic will deposit exciting Nearctic vagrants anywhere from Scilly to Shetland. Taking the plunge for a good seawatch, be it the south coast for spring Pomarine Skua passage or west Cornwall in autumn for ‘big’ shearwaters (or better), will stem from understanding how a rapidly moving depression through the English Channel or Western Approaches sees winds turn on an instant and conditions quickly favour one headland over another. Those are ‘macro’ levels of understanding birding weather and they apply at a ‘micro’ level, too. Through that invaluable field-time, you know the way in which your favourite spots work and you know what weather works best. Some of it is second nature (I know that an south-westerly autumn wind on the north Norfolk coast can be rather good, I’ve found more ‘schreep’-ing Richard’s Pipits here in a south-westerly than I ever have on an easterly) and some of it is learned. Knowing your weather, how birds are affected by it and what may (or may not) arrive in certain conditions will definitely have a positive outcome in your search for the oddity.