Birds of a feather take their chances with the weather
THE wild winds are blowing and upon them millions of feathered creatures are deciding to rise up and take their chances for a new life in warmer climes. Like a conductor directing some mammoth orchestra, the onset of storm season coincides with the peak of the great autumn migration.
Our summer visitors such as swallows, swifts and turtle doves will have already begun streaming south. By this time of year the dwindling number of turtle doves that managed to make it to these shores back in spring will most likely by now be somewhere over the Mediterranean heading back to Africa. On England’s south and west coast in recent days birdwatchers have counted large numbers of swallows and house martins following in hot pursuit.
According to one report from last week, watchers counted 1,383 swallows pass the Gwynedd coast in an hour and a half.
Over the coming days wild weather will continue to whip in from the Atlantic, so expect squalls of rain in between bright, chilly spells wherever you are.
This turbulent weather also stands to bring some interesting migrants with it. According to the British Trust for Ornithology, the pectoral sandpiper and semipalmated sandpiper have already made landfall this year and could be joined by other more exotic species, such as Sabine’s gull and long-tailed skua, blown in by the storms.
As these Atlantic weather systems make their way across the UK they will begin to draw in a north-easterly airflow, opening the door for birds such as the yellow-browed warbler to briefly touch down on their migration from Siberia. Once a rarity, the bird has now become a regular migrant visitor with several hundred being spotted each year.
In total at this time of year it is estimated that as many as 50million birds may be on the move. Beaten and buffeted by the elements, blown off one course to another, one wishes them Godspeed.