by Mike Dilger
Like humans, some Robins are far more proficient songsters than others, and those males which have not yet managed to attract the attentions of a female are generally considered to sing better and for longer. Each male will of course only sing from the comfort of his own territory and so by jotting down on a map every perch from which the bird sings, it can be a straightforward process to determine the boundaries of each territory. In fact the renowned Robin expert David Lack found it impossible to drive a singing bird from its territory, and stated ‘as the observer approaches the bird retreats, but on reaching the edge of its territory it does not proceed further, and if chivvied it unexpectedly flies back over the observer’s head to the middle of its ground’.
While the nation’s favourite bird holds firm over the festive season, so too will any established pair of Tawny Owls. The Long-eared and Tawny are comfortably the most nocturnal of all the British owls, and so with daylight lasting for barely a third of each 24-hour period by the time the winter solstice arrives, the Tawnies should have plenty of time for hunting, territory maintenance, pair bonding and taking the first tentative steps towards the breeding season. Despite an intimate knowledge of their territory, a temporary shortage of food will surely be the biggest cause of mortality in overwintering owls, potentially paving the way for a spot of opportunism to pay dividends. Nevertheless Hamish Smith from the Hawk and Owl Trust was truly surprised when checking the camera footage from a Peregrine nest situated on a church in the city of Bath in 2015, to find one enterprising urban Tawny Owl caught repeatedly visiting the church. Presumably having flown across from tree cover close by, this brazen individual was then filmed on a number of occasions relieving the resident Peregrines of some of the contents their winter cache!
In the ‘dog eat dog’ world of winter survival, some urban Peregrines have also developed a new trick up their sleeve for extending the number of hours they are able to spend hunting at this time of general food shortage in the natural world. The technique of hunting nocturnal migrants lit up by the city lights below was conclusively proved in December 2010, at Derby Cathedral, when a territory-holding Peregrine was filmed bringing in a Woodcock at 10.45pm. Filmed by a static camera as the Peregrine returned to the ledge, the grainy footage clearly shows the prey still alive on being brought in, before then being dispatched with a bite to the rear of its neck – definitive proof it had been plucked out of Derby’s illuminated night sky. For the resident pair of Peregrines staying close to their cathedral territory throughout that winter, the hapless Woodcock would certainly have provided a change from their normal Christmas fare of Feral Pigeon!
Any Kingfisher still holding territory come the end of the year will certainly not be ‘wishing for a white Christmas’, as the accompanying freezing temperatures can spell real trouble for a bird which needs water to be maintained in its liquid form if it is to catch sufficient food. At those few sites which may not have frozen over due to a quirk of topography or aspect, meaning fish are still accessible, the incumbent Kingfisher may have to accept that chasing off other starving Kingfishers is simply counter-productive. With territoriality quickly breaking down at these locations, the fishing may well descend into a free for all, until the weather relents sufficiently for the trespassers to be able to return to their own ice-free territories.
Being far more mobile than the Kingfisher, any Lapwing flocks suddenly caught out by a cold snap will simply respond with their wings by abandoning anywhere frozen for more agreeable conditions elsewhere. Often relocating on a broad front, the Lapwings will usually move during the day in a southerly or south-westerly direction as they attempt to track down frost-free food elsewhere. Occasionally these flocks can be huge, such as the 40,000 Lapwings seen along the Sussex coast near Shoreham in 1978. These large, mobile flocks will often not just consist of Lapwings, but also include Golden Plovers, Skylarks, thrushes and Starlings in their midst, all of which will be keen to tap into the Lapwings’ instinctive ability for finding fair-weather feeding conditions. Due to the recent run of mild winters in Britain, these large-scale movements have become far more sporadic, but in late December 2010, for example, when virtually the whole of Britain became snowbound, it’s thought the vast majority of Lapwings would have simply left for France and Spain, only returning to Britain when conditions improved.
For the Nightingales down in tropical Senegal and Gambia, plunging temperatures are highly unlikely ever to be an issue around Christmas. However, with the rainy season having already abruptly ended back in October, the steady drying out of the acacia scrub under the unrelenting sun is thought to be the decisive factor which will ultimately force the birds elsewhere come December or January. The fact that British-breeding Nightingales make a late winter movement away from Senegal and Gambia had not been realised until the tracking of a number of the birds with geolocators was started by the BTO in 2009. Nightingale OAD, and a further five other tagged birds subsequently followed in 2012, were all believed to have moved to the narrow coastal strip between Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone after originally setting up a temporary home up in Senegal and Gambia earlier in the winter. This region is considered to be more forested than the coastal areas further north, and with the rainy season drawing to a close marginally later in this region, the ability of the vegetation to retain that extra moisture for longer should still mean plenty of invertebrate food on offer later in the year than just up the coast. Nightingale OAD in 2009, for example, was thought to have departed Senegambia in mid to late December to spend the rest of its winter in the south-west corner of Guinea.
Just to the south of the diminutive country of Guinea-Bissau, the Republic of Guinea is roughly the size of the UK, with a population of just over 10 million. Despite being still heavily forested in some regions and with rich deposits of diamonds, gold and bauxite, the vast majority of the population works in the agricultural sector, seeing little of the country’s natural wealth. Next to nothing is known about precisely which habitats the Nightingales will be spending their time in this remote and understudied part of Africa, but the remnant fragments of the Western Guinean lowland forest ecoregion or the remaining patches of mangrove forests dotted along the Atlantic coast may figure prominently. Finding enough food during this period, as they prepare for the migration back north, will be crucial if this declining British species is to defy the odds, not only by surviving, but by continuing to successfully raise another brood in our southern woods in just over four months’ time.
Back in Britain, the only factor pushing the Blue Tits out of their small winter range would be the arrival of snow, but this would only represent a temporary setback for these resilient little birds, as they will then quickly return to familiar surroundings the instant the thaw sets in. Any garden with a well-stocked feeding station nearby may cause many of the local Blue Tits to distort their home range to make sure this location becomes a regular fixture on their daily rounds. These Blue Tits of course won’t have a monopoly on the food available, and must also contend with hungry members from other species, in addition to other individuals from within their own clan, if they are to garner enough food to make their visit worthwhile. Amongst the tits a pecking order will frequently occur, with the bigger, bulkier Great Tits dominating the other species. Coming a close second to their bigger cousins, the pugnacious character of the Blue Tits will stand them in good stead as they then, in turn, bully the smaller and more timid Coal Tits and Long-tailed Tits off the feeders.
In particularly cold weather, well-stocked gardens can become heaving with small birds, with BTO ringer Denise Wawman managing to count an astonishing 60 different Blue Tits at the same time in her small Somerset garden during the bitterly cold December in 2010. In this scenario, and with the stakes so high, it will surely be a case of every Blue Tit for itself, with the meek and mild potentially going hungry. As two Blue Tits compete for one perch on a feeder, each bird will attempt to assert its dominance by raising its crest, fluffing out its feathers, raising its wings a
nd opening its beak. As the birds face off, each will then have to make a snap decision as to whether to gamble by holding its position and returning the aggression with interest, or to quickly retreat in the face of such hostility. Countless numbers of these ‘mini-duels’ will occur around each feeder during these cold, short days, as the winner is rewarded with a beakful of food, which will then be spirited away to be devoured out of the spotlight in a secluded bush nearby.
Having already spent over four months well out at sea, it will probably be at least a further two and a half months before the adult Puffins will even contemplate touching down back on dry land. This will not stop them steadily moving closer to their respective breeding grounds, even though they will still be too far from shore to be spotted from either cliff-tops or promontories. Presumably the location they adopt for this ‘holding pattern’ will contain sufficient food reserves to allow the finalisation of their moult into the full breeding plumage. As the adult clans move closer to home, this will contrast with the young puffins, which in most cases will opt to spend the summer much further away from the bustling breeding colonies. Certainly for those birds hatching during the summer, and which will be currently seeing out their first winter, the moult of their main flight feathers won’t happen until the following spring and early summer. With a whole variety of predators accumulating around a puffinry in summer, this is presumably the last place a flightless and inexperienced Puffin would want to be. In reality, it may not be until the Puffins approach their third birthday that they will even be tempted back to visit the breeding colony, as these adolescents carry out their first tentative breeding reconnaissance. Recently added to the red list of British birds preserved for species of ‘the highest conservation concern’ due to a worldwide population decline, it must be hoped that this long-lived, iconic and characterful seabird is able to reverse this worrying trend.
Having spent four consecutive Christmases anywhere between 6,400km and 6,900km from his regular summering ground, it’s remarkable to think that Chris the Cuckoo could have clocked up around 125,000km in between when he was tagged near Santon Downham, Suffolk in June 2011 and his sad demise in the deserts of northern Chad in September 2015. In addition to visiting 15 different African countries, as well as most of western Europe in his colourful life, Chris has provided researchers with a wealth of information as they attempt to tackle exactly why the Cuckoo is declining so quickly as a British-breeding bird. Having been able to follow Chris’s every movement for over four years, two important facts stand out. With Chris having spent three times longer in the Congo than in Suffolk, then surely he is far more African than British? And also as a species with no regard for borders or frontiers, it needs to be an international effort right across the Cuckoo’s entire migration route if we are to conserve this wonderful and mysterious species, currently celebrating either a Congolese or an Angolan Christmas.
As the end of the year approaches it will be at least another six weeks before the Swallows begin to depart South Africa for their long circuitous route back to rural Britain. With even the stragglers having arrived by December, the sheer number of Swallows skimming the South African skies will make this species surely one of the country’s most populous winter visitors. The Barn Swallow is the most widespread species of Swallow in the world, and with six recognised subspecies can be seen during the appropriate season on every continent except Antarctica. Having lived alongside humans for thousands of years, it’s no surprise that a bird of such cultural significance in so many countries has been decorated with so many names, such as Golondrina in Spain, the bird that thaws the snow; Svala in Sweden, meaning console; or perhaps the most evocative of all, Nyankalema in Zambia, translating as the bird that never gets tired.
Dedicated to the memory of celebrated artist and ornithologist Thomas Bewick, Bewick’s Swans should be reaching their maximum counts in Britain around the turn of the year. Having fed well on our arable crops, pasture lands and estuaries, the birds will also be at their heaviest weight since their arrival in late October. With most of the fat stored between the legs and tail, researchers are able to see which birds have fed particularly well, with Julia Newth of WWT Slimbridge saying, ‘in a slim bird the bum will look slightly concave, whereas a well-fed bird will have a double-bulge’. This would suggest that birds with ‘big healthy behinds’ may fare better when the time comes to depart for their breeding grounds in late February. During the last census of Bewick’s Swans in January 2005, a grand total of 7,216 Bewick’s Swans were recorded at just 26 sites across Britain, representing 33% of all the 21,500 birds estimated to have been overwintering in north-west Europe during the same survey period. Falling from the peak count of 29,277 during the previous survey exactly a decade earlier, research work has still been unable to pinpoint exactly why this charismatic and hardy winter visitor from the Russian Arctic continues to decline.
During those years when Britain is lucky enough to be graced with a ‘Waxwing winter’, as birds coalesce at good feeding sites, the flock sizes can quickly build to impressive proportions, like the 1,400 seen at Pegwell Bay, on Kent’s east coast in December 2010. This spectacle must have been all the more thrilling given how approachable Waxwings always seem to be on their wintering grounds. They are relatively easily to count, as they trill away among the bare branches or line up on TV aerials in between feeding bouts, but estimating the grand total of Waxwings visiting Britain in an invasion year is a much more difficult task given the mobile nature of the flocks. The best attempt at assessing Waxwing numbers has been made by BirdTrack, an online website managed by a variety of conservation organisations, which collates records sent in by ‘citizen scientists’ across Britain and Ireland. Reported from 4,569 1km squares during the winter of 2010/11 and from 4,980 1km squares during the last invasion year of 2012/13, this sporadic and gentle winter visitor will surely delight whomever it meets and charm wherever it goes.
Further Reading
Balmer, D., Gillings, S., Caffrey, B., Swann, B., Downie, I. & Fuller, R. 2013. Bird Atlas 2007-2011. BTO Books, Thetford.
Chandler, David & Llewellyn, Ian. 2010. Kingfisher. New Holland Publishers.
Clare, Horatio. 2009. A Single Swallow, Vintage, Random House, London.
Cramp, Stanley (Editor). 1985. Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Volume 4. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Cramp, Stanley (Editor). 1988. Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Volume 5. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Davies, N. B. 2000. Cuckoos, Cowbirds and other Cheats. T & A.D Poyser, London.
Davies, Nick. 2015. Cuckoo - Cheating by Nature. Bloomsbury Publishing, London.
Drewitt, Ed. 2014. Urban Peregrines. Pelagic Publishing, Exeter.
Ferguson-Lees, J., Castell, R., & Leech, D. 2011. A Field Guide to Monitoring Nests. The British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford.
Flegg, Jim. 1987. The Blue Tit. Shire Publications, Bucks.
Ginn, H. B. & Melville, D. S. 1983. Moult in Birds. The British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford.
Hamilton James, Charlie. 2009. Kingfisher - Tales from the Halcyon River. Evans Mitchell Books.
Harris, Mike & Wanless, Sarah. 2011. The Puffin. T & A.D Poyser, London.
Holden, Peter & Cleeves, Tim. 2014. RSPB Handbook of British Birds, 4th Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., London.
Lack, David. 1965. The Life of the Robin. H.F & G. Witherby, London.
Mead, Chris. 1984. Robins. Whittet Books, London.
Mead, Chris. 1987. Owls. Whittet Books, London.
Pike, Oliver, G. 1932. The Nightingale - Its Story and Song. J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol.
Ratcliffe, Derek. 1993. The Peregrine Falcon. T & A.D Poyser, London.
Rees, Eileen. 2006. Bewick’s Swan. T & A.D. Poyser, London.
Shrubb, Michael. 2007. The Lapwing. T & A.D Poyser, London.
Snow, Barbara &
David. 1988. Birds and Berries. T & A.D. Poyser, London.
Tate, Peter. 1986. The Swallow. Shire Publications, Bucks.
Toms, Mike. 2003. The BTO/CJ Garden BirdWatch Book. The British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford.
Toms, Mike, 2014. Owls. William Collins, London.
Turner, Angela. 2006. The Swallow. T & A.D Poyser, London.
Taylor, Kenny. 1993. Puffins. Whittet Books, London.
Wernham, C., Toms, M., Marchant, J., Clark, J., Siriwardena, G., & Baillie, S. 2002.The Migration Atlas: Movements of the Birds of Britain and Ireland. T & A.D. Poyser, London.
Wyllie, Ian. 1987. The Cuckoo. Shire Publications, Bucks.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost thanks to my wonderful partner Christina, and not just for her constant support, but also for taking on the majority of domestic and child-minding duties while I either disappeared into my small, shambolic office, or was away filming. Huge appreciation must also go to the Dilger and Holvey families, particularly Renee, Graham and Laura who frequently go above and beyond in the ‘familial duties’ that might normally be expected. My agents Hilary Knight, Phyllida Knight and Jane Turnbull always have my back, and Jane particularly was instrumental in ensuring not only that this book was commissioned in the first place, but that it was also finished!
