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OBSERVING MIGRATIONPosted: 15.10.25 in Articles category
It’s mid-October and bird migration is in full swing where I live in Northumberland. During my afternoon walk, I can hear Redwings calling to each other in the trees, freshly arrived from Scandinavia. Moments later, a skein of 50 or so Barnacle Geese flies overhead, also calling as they do so. I speculate where they have come from - most likely to be Svalbard. Wherever it is, they have come a long way to take advantage of our milder weather during the winter months. Then I check my phone and see the latest WhatsApp posts from local birders. I read reports of more unusual avian migrants coming from Siberia including a few Yellow-browed Warblers and a single Red-flanked Bluetail that’s arrived today on Holy Island. The photo looks great, and I am tempted to go and see the bird if it stays overnight. What a buzz I feel during autumn migration! Flashback to early September. I am in southern Spain near Tarifa on the coast, not far over the sea to Morocco which I can see to the south only 10 miles away across the Strait of Gibraltar. I have come to observe raptor migration in arguably the best place in Europe. The area is an avian bottleneck where huge numbers of birds gather to take advantage of the short sea crossing, and that soon becomes obvious on our first morning. It’s sunny and getting hot, so I sit in the shade at a viewpoint looking east towards Algeciras. There are large birds in the distance flying in our direction. My guide calls out and as they approach I say to myself as I identify them too: “Honey Buzzard, a second Honey Buzzard and another and yet another…oh, that’s a pale morph Booted Eagle… that’s a dark phase bird… another Honey Buzzard… that pale bird looks different with its dark head…. because, yes of course, it’s a Short-toed Eagle with a small snake dangling from its bill…amazing! There’s a dozen Black Kites flying together over the ridge to our right … What? I think I can hear Bee-eaters – yes, there they are, flying high directly overhead…” It’s non-stop action for the next two hours and I don’t know where to look as birds seem to be everywhere, coming mainly from east to west in waves above us and sometimes at head height. So exhilarating to watch as the birds keep on coming…. Avian migration isn’t necessarily spectacular to watch. Much of it happens at night, particularly with smaller birds like warblers as they try to avoid being seen by predators. Indeed, I had always assumed migrating birds flew at night, seen one day and gone the next. However, I now know that’s not strictly true as I learn more about ‘viz-migging’ – watching birds of all sorts migrating during the day. It seems most UK birds migrate including ‘residential’ species like blackbirds, robins, wrens and woodpigeons. One afternoon last week I heard a distant Skylark as I stood in my garden. I looked up and saw the bird in flight, albeit a small dot high above my head. Scanning with my binoculars I could see it was heading south. And I wondered. Would it spend the winter in southern Spain? |
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