Ingham’s W RLD
FOR nature lovers this is a magical time of the year. The bluebells are out, butterflies are on the wing and the woods are ringing with the songs of summer visitors. But – there is always a but – summer visitors are not arriving in their usual numbers this year as several readers have pointed out to me. The reason why is a mystery.
The decline is obvious on my daily walks with my dog. Swifts, for example, usually arrive in my area on polling day at the beginning of May. Not this year. They are still in short supply.
I have barely seen any house or sand martins though our swallows have arrived.
In the woods there are plenty of blackcaps, warblers with a flutey song, but garden warblers, whitethroat and chiffchaff are much scarcer than normal. I have yet to hear a willow warbler in the south.
I checked on the British Trust for Ornithology’s BirdTrack website. This huge database goes back years, based on sightings sent in by thousands of birdwatchers.
Comparing current sightings with the historical average shows that our summer visitors are arriving later this year and in smaller numbers. The peak for most sightings is now – and most are well below the norm.
That is true for wheatear, whitethroat, garden warbler, willow warbler, swallow, sand martin and swift. House martins are not only late but their numbers are only half what they should be.
BTO data suggests that last year our summer visitors – swallows excepted – had a reasonable breeding season so it isn’t as if fewer birds flew south. This year the first wave of the spring migration was held up by the Beast from the East but we have had more than enough southerlies since to waft the birds in from Africa.
Short distance migrants such as blackcaps from the Mediterranean are doing well. The dip in numbers is among long distance migrants which cross the Sahara. So the missing millions may have been lost to harsh weather on their wintering grounds. But as these birds winter from the swamps of Senegal to southern South Africa that would have required a continent-wide weather bomb.
The likeliest cause is tough conditions on migration last autumn or this spring. It just proves how fragile these species can be – and the perils they undergo on their incredible migrations.
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