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| All Change Please - Waxwings depart as the summer migrants arrive |
It doesn’t seem so long ago that I was last talking about
the subject of migration. Then, the summer warblers, swifts and swallows were
leaving us for their African over-wintering grounds and winter ducks and
thrushes from Scandinavia and beyond were
starting to arrive on the Reserve (followed by one of the coldest winters on
record). The more recent arrivals however, over the last week, bring with them
the prospect of warmer weather on the horizon and signal the start of the
spring migration.
The first spring arrivals are usually sand martins. They are
the smallest of the European hirundines (martins and swallows) and come to the UK to breed following a 2000 mile journey from
the Sahel, a region to the south of the Sahara
desert where most of them have been over-wintering. Look out on Coneries Pond
over the next few weeks and you’re sure to see them as they cruise above the
water catching insects on the wing. They nest in tunnels that they excavate
45-90cm deep in the soft mud along the banks of the River Trent and on some of
the islands within the Nature Reserve. A single bird was spotted on the Reserve
on Friday the 11th - almost a week earlier than last year, followed
by two birds on Saturday.
As you walk around the Reserve at the moment you might also
hear the easily recognisable call of the chiffchaff (a kind of ‘does exactly
what it says on the tin’ song). This small olive-brown warbler is another of
the early spring arrivals to the UK, and some birds that breed
further north will have even over-wintered in the Country in small numbers. It
is not uncommon for the male chiffchaff to return to its breeding site two or
three weeks before the female. On arrival the males immediately start singing
to establish ownership of the territory and to attract a female.
For me though, the biggest excitement over the last
week had to be a flock of birds that were travelling northwards from the
Reserve (back to Scandinavia) with the arrival of about 150 waxwings in Attenborough Village. This rare winter visitor comes
to the UK
in small numbers each year where their traditional winter habitat often
includes supermarket car-parks – due to the frequent use of rowan trees (a
favourite food source for waxwings) in amenity planting schemes. Very occasionally
waxwings come to the UK in
larger numbers called irruptions – when a failure of berry crops in the bird’s
native Scandinavia forces them to seek food
elsewhere. This winter has been regarded as one of those ‘good’ years (for
birdwatchers) as thousands of waxwings have been reported across the length and
breadth of the Country.
