Nightingales in November (3 page)

Waxwing

Even in the darkest days of winter there is one bird that can be guaranteed to bring a bit of glitz and glamour to a cold day's birdwatching. With its expressive crest, pinkish-buff plumage, waxy wingtips, and gregarious and confiding nature, there is little not to like about the Waxwing. What adds even more of a frisson to spotting them is that in some years no more than a few hardy souls reach our northern and eastern shores from their breeding grounds across the North Sea
and beyond. However, in other years, when a good breeding season is combined with a scarcity of food on the continent, they'll ‘irrupt' and head for Britain in their thousands. In these years, it becomes the continent's loss and our gain, as anywhere from Peterhead to Penzance receives a smattering of these gentle marauding flocks. Seemingly as happy to feed in town as in country, any city with street-lined ornamental Rowans, or garden with Pyracanthas and Cotoneasters, will be effectively laying out the welcome mat for this most benign of invaders.

Blue Tit

Despite being primarily a bird of broad-leaved woodland, the Blue Tit's enterprising and adaptable nature has enabled it to take advantage of the bountiful supplies of food we leave out. Undoubtedly one the most widespread and familiar of all our garden birds, British Blue Tits are considered to be largely resident, with the territorial male courting his female as a prelude to the building of their nest. Raising their single, large clutch in late April or early May, for breeding Blue Tits it really is a case of ‘all your eggs in one basket'. Anyone who regularly feeds the birds all year will also be familiar with the sudden influx of yellow-faced juveniles piling in for a free hand-out as broods up and down the land fledge by midsummer. Once outside the breeding season, any territoriality that existed around the nest will disappear, as both adults and juveniles band together with other species to form roving, mobile flocks in search of food. As each species in these mixed flocks occupies a subtly different feeding niche, there should be little direct competition for food, and also more pairs of eyes able to look out for the local Sparrowhawk!

January

As the dust settles on our New Year celebrations, we shouldn't let ‘auld acquaintance be forgot' and spare a thought for the welfare of twelve iconic birds that we deign to call British. Winter will still be deepening its icy grip in what is statistically the coldest month of the year in Britain, and having passed the winter solstice only a few weeks previously, each 24-hour period will still consist of close to two-thirds darkness. With most plants lying dormant at this time and a whole host of mammals, reptiles and amphibians choosing hibernation to see out the winter, birds will have one of two choices – to stick or to twist! Despite the cold, dark days predominating, only our summer migrants from our chosen twelve species will have forsaken the British winter for foreign climes. With all three traditional summer visitors bringing in the New Year at very different locations across the African continent, and our British Puffins widely
dispersed out at sea, the remaining eight should still be more than able to eke out a living in a frosty Britain.

Early January

Positively revelling in the cold weather, Bewick's Swan numbers will be at their peak here in early January. Having opted to spend the winter over 3,500km from their breeding grounds on the Russian tundra, the Bewick's will be positively basking in the relatively balmy conditions a British winter has to offer. With their summer nesting locations currently covered by snow and ice, ground temperatures plummeting to below –20°C and daylight ferociously truncated, decamping to a northern Europe warmed by the Gulf Stream is frankly the only option for even these hardy swans.

With worries that the western population of Bewick's Swans has been falling for a couple of decades, the 7,000 or so currently wintering in the British Isles is thought to represent close to 40% of the entire European population. The Ouse Washes holds the majority of these British-wintering Bewick's Swans, with over 5,000 spread out at a string of sites, but undoubtedly the best studied Bewick's are those that visit the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) reserve at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. Attracted in with daily supplies of grain and the promise of a safe night's roost inside a huge encircling electric fence, upwards of 350 wild Bewick's Swans will visit Slimbridge's Rushy Pen during the course of the winter. Uniquely for this species, scientists are able to identify individual birds from the endlessly variable patterns of black and yellow on each swan's bill.

Being able to easily recognise individual Bewick's Swans has enabled the researchers at Slimbridge to reveal much about the lives of these birds that would otherwise have remained largely a mystery. Firstly, many of the swans
visiting Slimbridge are regulars, with individuals recorded back in the Rushy Pen over a succession of winters. Also, the Bewick's are capable – with accrued experience and luck – of reaching a ripe old age. A Bewick's Swan called ‘Caper', for example, was recorded in the winter of 2014/15, still going strong at the grand old age of at least 26. When not helping themselves to the free handouts from the Slimbridge wardens, the swans will pass much of the time feeding in the abundant grass pastures that dominate estuarine Gloucestershire. Safe in the knowledge that they are both well protected and that disturbance is kept to a minimum, they're able to fill their bellies on a rich grass sward from dawn to dusk, before returning to the sanctuary of Slimbridge each night.

Only ever seen here between October and March, the Bewick's Swans are firmly in the ‘winter visitor' category in the minds of British birdwatchers. The Waxwing is the only other bird in our ‘top twelve' that does not breed here either, saving its visits to British shores for the shortest days and coldest nights. While no British winter will ever be ‘Waxwing-free', the number of these gorgeous ‘pink punks' visiting can vary enormously from year to year. In some years, the numbers visiting the UK will be no more than a trickle, but in other winters they seemingly pour over from their breeding grounds in the northern taiga forests of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Federation. Over the previous 11 years, we've seen three invasions – during the winters of 2004/05, 2010/11 and 2012/13. In these years, up to 10,000 birds were recorded at the height of winter, split into flocks of varying size. Usually arriving along our east coast, and dropping in anywhere from the Shetland Islands to the Isle of Sheppey, flocks of different sizes will descend straight down to the numerous berry-laden trees to refuel after their long flight across the North Sea. Often seen in
handsome numbers in our towns and cities, because many local councils have a predilection for lining streets with fruit-bearing trees, the Waxwings will firstly strip this supply before being forced further inland to find more fruit.

Dedicated insectivores during the high summer of the breeding season, by the time winter arrives Waxwings will have made the switch to fully-fledged frugivores, devouring anything from rowan and hawthorn berries, to rosehips and apples. It seems in those ‘non-invasion' years, despite the sub-zero temperatures close to their breeding grounds, and days with little more than six hours of light for feeding, the local berry supply should be more than sufficient to keep the vast majority of birds well fed. This means that in the years when only a trickle reaches eastern Britain, there will be far less competition for the berries, and so little need to forage further inland. For reasons that are not entirely understood, in other years, the berry crops close to the Waxwings' breeding grounds may well fail to materialise, and when this is combined with a series of productive breeding seasons the birds will need to migrate rather than risk starvation.

Having crossed the North Sea to arrive in Britain, by early January in an invasion year, Waxwing flocks may well be reported from the West Country, along the south coast and even as far away as Ireland. Being nomadic birds, and driven on by their stomachs, these Scandinavian immigrants can be seen anywhere from out-of-town supermarket car parks to tree-lined suburban streets. Seemingly incredibly confiding, possibly because they rarely come into contact with us humans on their breeding grounds, it is certainly a ‘pink-letter day' when a small flock of these enchanting winter visitors pays a visit to a berry-laden tree or bush near you.