Pipers on song for a marathon
Irresistible forces will soon be encouraging summer songbirds to begin their long journeys south for the winter.
These coming weeks will see warblers, martins and chats taking on high-calorie food to fuel arduous flights across the Sahara.
Telephone wires make perfect places for swallows to gather before the big push towards Africa. Scrubby hedges decked with elderberry see blackcaps gorging on sugarrich fruits and flycatchers picking off insects.
Long before this, wading birds will be in the throes of migrating from Arctic tundra and subarctic forests to British wetlands.
Icelandic black-tailed godwits, red knots from Greenland and wood sandpipers from Scandinavian forests are arriving by the day.
Locations such as the RSPB’S Frampton reserve on the margins of The Wash and both Titchwell and Cley along the North Norfolk coast are fantastic locations to observe shorebird gatherings. They also provide a chance to find a rare wader from distant lands.
One of the most remarkable birds likely to put in a cameo appearance is the white-rumped sandpiper. Weighing little more than an ounce but with a wing span almost the width of two newspaper pages, these birds perform incredible feats of endurance.
After leaving breeding grounds on the islands skirting Canada’s North Western Passages, the sandpipers – affectionately known as “peeps” by birders – head as far as South America’s Cape Horn, shortening the time spent in the air by following the natural curve of the Earth.
This trajectory sees them heading way out into the Atlantic with the risk of being caught up in weather systems that drive them towards Europe.
Although I have seen the occasional white-rumped Sandpiper feeding on the shoreline of New Jersey, and have even managed to spot one at Goose Green on the Falkland Islands, I have encountered far more in Europe, including several sizeable flocks on the Azores.
A report on scarce migrant birds in the current edition of British Birds journal says, on average, 20 white-rumped sandpipers make it to the UK every late summer. So be at the ready to spot one this August.