Nightingales in November (16 page)

Already a week into incubation, the female Tawny Owl will be approximately a quarter of the way through her vigil, with the only break in monotony occurring when she has to defecate, or her mate brings food to the nest site. Carefully turning the eggs regularly to ensure they are evenly warmed, she is every inch the devoted mother. At this stage, many female Tawny Owls will actively defend their clutch from what they consider to be potential predators, with a number of anecdotal reports of certain individual birds attacking mammalian intruders such as dogs and Foxes encountered
too close to the nest sites. In reality, only some will attack, as many sitting females may prefer to sit tight, while others either slip away or even become the model of docility. It must of course have been a female at the aggressive end of the spectrum that caused the famous wildlife photographer Eric Hosking to lose an eye when he was attacked entering a hide close to a Tawny Owl nest in 1937.

The only other animal likely to incur the wrath of an established pair of Kingfishers during the digging stage will be an intruding member of the same species. During this key period any trespasser ‘fishing around' will be given short shrift, particularly when caught so close to such a valuable commodity as a good nesting bank. In addition to digging, courtship feeding will by now have become a regular feature in the birds' daily routine. With the Kingfishers still buzzing around their territory, the male will often follow up these high-speed chases with a fishy gift. Offering a recently caught fish with its head pointing out, as opposed to head-first when feeding himself, he will present his gift amid much noise and ceremony. Quivering her wings as she accepts the fish, which in many ways mimics the behaviour of hungry baby birds, she will be helping to ensure she is in the best possible body condition with the time for egg formation rapidly approaching.

Certainly in southern Britain, mid-March should see the Robin pairs putting their initial estrangement behind them and pulling together as the mating process moves to centre stage. Nest building is an activity undertaken purely by the female, and coincides with a rise in her aggression, as she backs up the male in repelling intruders of either sex
attempting to disrupt their party. With material gleaned from around the territory, the nest is built mostly of moss on a foundation of leaves, which is then often lined with hair. The location slated for construction is usually on or near the ground and well concealed in any hollow, nook or cranny, such as in amongst climbing plants, tree roots, or piles of logs. Open-fronted nest boxes can also be attractive to Robins provided they're well concealed. Robins are also well known for nesting in all kinds of unlikely locations, and renowned Robin expert David Lack collected reports of pairs having nested in letterboxes, old boots, coat pockets, under car bonnets and even inside a human skull!

The female is very discreet while constructing the nest and will only build for around four hours each day. At this stage and during laying, the birds are very sensitive to any disturbance and will readily desert the nest if they think it's been discovered. So unless the birds are particularly accustomed to people, it's best to stay away from the immediate vicinity of a Robin's nest until the female has begun incubation. During the nest-building stage the pair may also fleetingly display to one another as a prelude to sex. During this courtship the female will suddenly remain still before lowering her head and causing the body to hunch. The male will then occasionally sway before briefly mounting her. Sex amongst Robins seems to be nothing more than perfunctory and is only performed a few times a day during nest building and egg laying.

With most Robins aiming for two broods, and possibly even a third in good years, it is in their interests to begin the breeding season as soon as the weather permits. However, as Blue Tits will aim for just one large brood in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, timing is everything. With invertebrate prey still relatively scarce for a few weeks
yet, the Blue Tits certainly in southern Britain may well be holding off nest building until the end of this month. With spring arriving first in the south-west of Britain, before then proceeding at walking pace across the country in a north-easterly direction, it's no surprise that northern Blue Tits may well delay their nesting attempts by as much as a month compared to their southern cousins. As with the female Robins, it's vital that the female Blue Tits remain fit and strong in preparation for the prodigious toll egg laying will exact on their bodies. Begging regularly from her mate at this stage, the female will indicate her desire to be fed by fluffing out her feathers, lowering her head and fluttering her outstretched wings, behaviour that will carry right through until when the chicks hatch.

As the female Blue Tits eat almost enough for two, the last unpaired Lapwing females should now be making their final selection of mate and territory. The females won't just be admiring the males' dazzling displays, but will also be running a keen eye over the quality of their real estate. The best territories have features that help camouflage their nest, such as broken or cryptic backgrounds, and are placed well away from trees and field boundaries so as to deter perching predators. Ideal locations will also be sited close to good feeding or chick-rearing areas, such as tilled land or wet areas, and additionally contain some short vegetation or bare ground on which to nest. Once the females have moved into the territory of choice the next step will be to cement their pair bond with courtship displays.

For the Puffins returning to their nesting colonies, renewing acquaintances will be a high priority before they even think
of putting a foot on dry land. The first records of Puffins arriving back in spring are always of small numbers of birds on the water close to the colonies. Different colonies tend to receive the Puffins back at slightly different times, but the pattern of events at sites such as Skomer Island, the Farne Islands and St Kilda is always similar. The first birds arriving back will do little apart from float around in small groups facing into the wind and waves, but as numbers steadily build up, and established pairs meet up again after a winter in all probability spent apart, they will renew their wedding vows and pick up from where they left off last August. The most frequent early demonstration of an established pairing is ‘billing', where the Puffins will rapidly and noisily knock their bills together, with the male invariably being the one to instigate this wooing. It is not until substantial numbers of birds build up on the water that an element of ‘safety in numbers' will find Puffins comfortable enough to leave the sanctuary of the sea.

Until very recently, the details of not just where Nightingales overwintered in Africa, but also when and from where they left to return to northern Europe, was still largely unknown. However, thanks to the use of tiny geolocators by the BTO, these mysteries are slowly being revealed. The first Nightingale to successfully bring a geolocator back to Britain with meaningful data, imaginatively entitled OAD, revealed the path down to West Africa, but the equipment frustratingly failed around February. This meant that the return journey was still pretty much guesswork until other Nightingales successfully returned to England with fully functioning equipment in subsequent years. Five Nightingales with geolocators attached in Orlestone Forest in Kent in 2012 successfully made it down to Africa and the data from the recovered tags revealed they all began their return
migration the following spring between 11 March and 19 March.

The most remarkable of these five birds was ‘Nightingale 098', which after leaving Sierra Leone took just three days to travel, in what must have been non-stop flight, all the way to southern Portugal, an astonishing distance of around 3,300km. Flying at a scarcely believable 45km per hour, and so almost certainly aided by a tailwind, the bird is thought to have taken the coastal route, passing through Senegambia, Mauritania, Western Sahara and Morocco, before crossing the Mediterranean into southern Portugal. Migrating along this route means that Nightingales are believed to circumvent the Sahara Desert, arriving in southern Europe just before their fat reserves run critically low – all in all, a pretty impressive feat of both physical endurance and navigational ability!