The Bovey Birder

The morning dawned bright and early, and as we set off up through the woods, smoky breath settled like mist above us. The New Forest National Park is a picturesque place, full of unique habitats and special species. And the Wild New Forest Wildlife Camp was a brilliant way to experience it. It was a Saturday morning and we had set off on the walk through the woods towards the ringing location, near Telegraph Hill. A Redwing called above us, a newly arrived Thrush here on our shores to spend the winter.

At the woodland edge, we crossed the narrow road and set off on the track that wound its way through the vast heathland before us, with thick stands of holly on the left merging into another patch of woodland in the distance. That was where we were headed, but we were looking out for birds on the way too. Several Ravens flew over immediately, their harsh caw ripping the chill air. A Stonechat called from the top of a gorse bush, before plunging deep into the thorny world beneath it, dotted with yellow blooms.

30 minutes later, we had arrived at the back of the truck, the parcel shelf strewn with ringing equipment. The trees now hung over us, shielding us from the sharp rays of the rising sun. The ringing team, who were also young people on the camp that had prior experience with bird ringing, had arrived earlier to set up nets and prepare the demonstration, and they now returned from the woods, laden with wriggling cloth bags containing very precious cargo. The session was led by licensed ringer Marcus.

Before I continue, I just thought I’d better say that bird ringing does not harm the bird in any way, or cause it any stress and pain. It is always rapidly removed from the nets, and being inside the bag calms it down before it is weighed, aged, sexed and its wings are measured, and then the data is recorded. After this it is ringed, and released. Most of this happens very quickly, and birds are often processed in under five minutes. After they are ringed and released, they are often caught in different ringing stations up and down the country. Those who have caught it for the second time can cross reference the unique ring number and figure out where it came from, and this helps science to learn more about the species’ movements and help to understand the birds more. Here are a few highlight species from the ringing session.

Out of one of these white bags came a bird we had seen many times, often in small flocks, on the way up, flying over and calling with their high pitched voices. A Redwing, with its pale yellow eyestripe and speckled breast, sat in the hand of Emily, often lifting its wings to reveal their rusty red underneath, which is of course their namesake. Redwings provide a brilliant example of visible migration, with many groups arriving in off the North Sea onto the East Coast, and in amazing numbers. During autumn, hundreds are regularly sighted arriving from Iceland and Scandinavia at sites like Spurn Point. However, there is likely to be a lot more Redwings arriving than we realise, because many migrate at night.

Another really cool bird to see in the hand was Britain’s smallest, a tricky sight to pick out among the highest boughs of a tree. Weighing in at 5.5g, the weight of a 20p coin, a Goldcrest was sat in the hand of Emily, beautifully fragile and delicate, a striking dash of rich yellow splashed across its crown. This tiny bird is the subject of many a myth and legend, and the fact that birds arrive here from Scandinavia and continental Europe has backed up the stories that suggest they fly on the back of other bigger birds in order to reach our shores. With their minuscule size, it certainly seems believable, doesn’t it?

A relative of the Redwing was next out of the bag, but this Thrush was a glossy, slightly ruffled, smoky black. Yes, I know what you’re going to say. Blackbirds are common as mud, aren’t they? Well, I guess they are, but they are breathtaking to see in the hand. Features you wouldn’t normally notice become apparent and clear, such as the yellow eye ring and the faint detail in the feathers. At this time of year, our resident population is boosted by large numbers of this species arriving from the continent to overwinter here. This bird was a younger one, due to the fact that its bill didn’t yet have the adult’s yellow colour to match the eye-ring.

There was one lifer among the birds we caught that day, and it was one of the target species for the session, and a bird that the New Forest is famous for. Around half of the UK population lives here, and they are a true heathland specialist. The males can be seen with a jaunty puffed up crest, almost like a mohawk, as they sit atop windswept heathland, the unlikely king of their domain. I am of course talking about the Dartford Warbler, an absolutely phenomenal bird to see. This particular individual was a female, and lacked the crest, but still retained the rick rusty brown colour.

The final bird to enter my top five for the ringing session was Britain’s only other Kinglet species, the first of which we had already witnessed in the hand this morning. First came the Goldcrest, then its rarer counterpart, the Firecrest. Named for its crest that’s reminiscent of a lick of flame, it is just 0.1g heavier than a Goldcrest, and comes in at Britain’s second smallest bird. Their breeding distribution in Britain is mainly restricted to southeast and eastern England, and they are much more common as a winter visitor, when our roughly 550 pairs are boosted by birds from the continent. I couldn’t get a photograph because, as they are such a sensitive species, it was probably wiser not to. But they are really cool birds!

In the ringing session, we had many other brilliant species in the hand, including Linnet, Stonechat, Chaffinch, Robin, Blue and Great Tits, and several Wrens. We spent pretty much the entire morning there, and it wasn’t just the ringing that proved exciting. A Peregrine Falcon, having been perched in a far off birch tree isolated on the heath, suddenly chose its moment in the spotlight and leapt from its perch, flying rapidly off away to the left. That was incredible, and shows how the beauty of nature is often in its unpredictability, and you have to be quick and attuned to find it.

Several Hawfinches, another rare New Forest specialty, flew over our heads between the trees. They are our largest finch, and their huge, heavy bills are designed to crack large seeds like those from a cherry tree. Despite their imposing size compared to many other songbirds living in these parts, they are incredibly shy birds, and are difficult to see. They have declined heavily in recent years, largely due to deforestation and disturbance.

That morning, we got a brilliant array of species in the ringing nets, with birds from two different habitats featuring, as nets were set up both on the heath and in the woods. When there was a lull in the ringing excitement, I set about photographing the various mushrooms and fungi that were hiding in the woods, and came up with several different species such as Amethyst Deceiver (named for its colour) and Jelly Spot Fungus. All in all, a really enjoyable morning!

Its the time of year when the avian world once again begins its twice annual journeys, heading for and from places across the globe. It is one of nature’s greatest spectacles, and yet the autumn migration always tends to be a little less noticeable than Spring, but no less breath-taking. Even now, influxes of Arctic breeding birds are arriving on our shores, to escape the bitter Northern winter. Pink-Footed Geese, in mind-bogglingly vast flocks, arrowing across the skies. Waxwings, varying year to year from just a handful of individuals to thousands, storm berry bushes in supermarket car parks in the East. Fieldfares and Redwings bring a completely different colour palette to our array of British thrushes.

Birds passing through, stopping over to rest, are rife along our coastline, and are often blown further inland by storms out to sea. Yellow Browed and Palla’s Warblers, smart green warblers with a dashing stroke of sunshine painted across their faces, turn up anywhere and everywhere from Spurn Point to Stanford Reservoir. Black Terns suddenly appear overnight on our wetlands, and Curlew Sandpiper fly in with the Dunlin to provide many an ID conundrum.

And then there are the departing birds that visited us to breed, but are now flying away back to wintering grounds, many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. Swallows and Swifts take their aerial acrobatics elsewhere, with the former often to be seen gathering on power lines that span coastal towns and villages, preparing for their imminent journey south. A large proportion of our breeding warblers, from Whitethroats to Sedge Warblers, leave us during the Autumn, heading for warmer climes.

With these departing, arriving and passing birds, however, come a fair few surprises, such as the Long Billed Dowitcher that has recently been hanging around the Exe Estuary (not sure if it still is). Usually, this is an American bird, gracing the States with its spear of a bill. By all accounts, it should not be here. But migration is not an exact science. Birds get blown off course, become disorientated and lose their way, or even chased off their route by a predator. When they arrive here, they are known as vagrants. Hurricane Milton has caused devastation in Florida, but expect a few intriguing American visitors on British shores before too long.

So, those are the four main scenarios to be expected for birders during autumn migration season. One of the most notable collective departures is that of our seabirds, deserting their colonies until next year, and flying out to sea in huge numbers, before dispersing and making their own way until next spring. During this time, most seabirds will act as solitary, while coming together to feed. They will return to find their mate, or court for a new one. Many seabirds mate for life. Some of the best places to watch this spectacle lie on our east coast, with spots such as Bempton Cliffs and Flamborough Head acting as launch pads for auks, fulmars, and kittiwakes.

Seawatching at this time of year, whether from a headland or from the deck of a boat, can be especially rewarding, with birds passing down through our seas. From Long Tailed Skuas to Great Shearwaters, warp up warm and head out for some scarce seabirds. Spots such as Portland Bill and Cornwall have an unmatched pedigree for turning out exceptionally rare vagrants. Pelagic boat trips, specifically for seawatching, are a real treat, as (in my opinion) the best way to get good views of these avian wonders.

Back to land now, and woodland birds will be easier to track down, with the leaves quickly falling off the trees and weaving their crunchy autumn carpet with red and gold thread. Many of them, such as Tits and Finches, will join together in small, mixed-species flocks, to rove the woodlands in search of food. Bolstered by the arrival of the beechmast loving Bramblings, these groups provide some brilliant birding. And with predators having less food in the colder months, safety in numbers becomes even more important!

Safety in numbers is actually a great way to lead me onto my next segment, which is of course, about Starling murmurations. As we enter the colder months (usually from October to March), these boisterous garden birds will gather together to form one of nature’s most mesmerising phenomenons. In the evening, before settling down to roost in a copse or a reedbed, hundreds of Starlings rise into the biting air to move as one, swirling and whirling, contorting into different shapes. Nothing is more breathtaking, and recent science suggests that the birds are able to do this because they follow the movements off the birds immediately around them. They really do act as if the whole flock is just one bird.

So, there’s my overview on the new birding season, with autumn a great time to get out and go looking for something new. It may be colder, and the days shorter, but there is a completely different array of nature on offer here, just as good as the warm Spring breeding season.

The Osprey is an iconic fish eating raptor, one that mate for life and returns to the same nest site every year. But recently, they’ve been randomly sighted at different spots across the country, in places you wouldn’t exactly expect to find them. The Osprey breeding strongholds of Scotland, the Lake District and more recently sites like Rutland Water, are certainly the places you’d be in with the best chance of spotting them, simply because here they’ll be providing for their young, and therefore out fishing more often. But when autumn arrives, and the breeding season is over for these birds, its time to head back to Africa for the winter. And best route for the Ospreys is to head down into southern England and across the Channel.

Birds, while migrating, have to sustain their flight for miles and miles in order to reach their destination. This could easily be 5,000km (3,106 miles), and these birds are perfectly equipped to fly over 400km in one day while on these annual journeys. But stopping off for rest and sustenance is crucial. After all, you can’t really expect anybody to travel these sorts of distances in one go? And this is why they’re currently being spotted all over the park. From the Thames estuary, to the Isle of Wight, they’ve been spotted resting and feeding on the banks of our rivers and lakes.

A few such sightings have come on the Exe, an estuary nationally important for its avian life, which just so happens to be fairly local to us. They’ve been spotted fishing, hovering or simply flying overhead. These majestic birds have been spending their precious time preparing for the next leg of their perilous migration. And believe me, it is perilous. Hunting pressures, draining of waterways, and disturbance play huge factors in making their journey so difficult. The odds are that less than half of the young Ospreys will live to their second year of life, showing the threats they face, both natural and human.

The Exe, among the other estuaries that exist along our south coast, are all crucially important for the migration of British Ospreys, because they pose as the last point of call before the channel crossing, during which they will have no access to food, water or resting points. Only when they reach the continent will they again be able to stop off when needed, and that makes their fuelling up at places such as the Exe even more crucial. If not done properly, they might not even get across the English Channel.

Ospreys have been completing this migration for centuries, but it hasn’t always been plain sailing for them here. Considered a threat to fish farms and stocks, they were routinely shot and killed by gamekeepers and sportsmen, and were considered vermin by many. Even in the last few weeks, one has been found shot in Perthshire Scotland. Egg collecting, a hobby made popular in Victorian times, helped to bring this species to its knees, until finally, in 1847, Ospreys became extinct in England and Wales. In Scotland, they disappeared by 1916. They didn’t breed in England for over 150 years!

But the world of conservation hadn’t given up just yet. In 1954, Ospreys bred in Scotland for the first time in decades, at Loch Garten, now an RSPB reserve. Despite this being a natural recolonisation, organisations such as the RSPB needed to give them a lot of protection and help for them to raise their young successfully. In England, it took a little longer, but after a male translocated to Rutland Water in 1997 raised a single chick with a ringed female, they were finally back! The Osprey was saved, and now there are around 300 breeding pairs in Britain. Now you might just be lucky to see one of these majestic birds of prey passing through near you!

Hello! This post is all about hirundines, that family of birds whose exploits on the wing are almost unchallenged in the natural world. I thought I would write this post while many of these birds are making preparations for their return migration back to Africa. So this post is to explain what they’re doing, before they’ve gone and its too late for you to look out for any of these behaviours. You could even compare them to humans packing for a holiday, except these guys are packing themselves full of insects while they’re available! Read on…

So, what are the hirundines? The simple answer for Britain is four intriguing species. The Barn Swallow, the Common Swift, the Western House Martin and the Sand Martin. According to a height analogy explained to me by Nick Baker, Swallows fly low across the fields, House Martins around the height of, naturally, a house, and Swifts like to control the higher airspace. The Sand Martin is less common, and you’re really unlikely to see it in urban areas, unlike the three former hirundines.

There are two definitions of a hirundine, according to the Collins English Dictionary. The first is ‘of or resembling a Swallow’. The second is ‘belonging to the bird family hirundinidae, which includes swallows and martins’. Personally, I prefer the latter, simply because it takes into account the existence of other species within the family. The former however is still true. Most of the species within hirundinidae do look like Swallows. One thing they all have in common though, from the Wire-Tailed Swallow to the Purple Martin, is that they’re all adapted to a life largely spent on the wing, with some almost exclusively.

And all that flying is crucial to their lifestyle, for their migration is one long and exhausting journey. Spending their winters in Africa, British Swifts have to migrate 3,400 miles to reach our shores and bring their beautifully evocative screaming calls to our shores. Yet they manage to complete this journey in around just four week’s time! Want to know how? Well, a Swift’s flying speed would be at home on our National Speed Limit motorways, with them clocking speeds of almost 70mph. Once they’re here, they leave no time to waste, arriving from early May and leaving around mid-July. So, by the time you’re reading this, most of them will have left. But have no fear! They should be back next year!

After arriving here, any hirundine’s main purpose will be to find a suitable nest site in order to breed. In times before urbanisation and modernisation, these birds would nest in tree cavities, on sheer cliff edges and in other hard to reach places. But now, they have come to rely on our infrastructure, and many have chosen to nest in the remarkably similar eaves of our houses. Raising their young will become the main feature of their holiday, and TONNES of insects are needed to support our population. That’s if they get here first, because their migration, despite their incredible speed, is truly perilous. Just four years ago, back in 2020, a freak Mediterranean storm left dead Swallows and Swifts littering the streets of Greece, helpless to the wrath of the Earth’s weather systems. This of course affected the numbers of birds that reached Britain, and that severely dropped, leaving expectant swallow and swift lovers ringing in to conservation organisations and newspapers alike.

By now, large parts of the breeding is complete and Swifts are already largely departed, with House Martins beginning to follow suite, but some of them will remain until October, along with the Swallows. Feeding up is crucial to their return migration, so many will be catching as many insects as they can in order to build up body reserves to fuel their next 3,400 mile migration exploit. As we move in to late summer, expect to see large numbers of Swallows gathering on power lines, in their own departure lounge, preparing for their journey.

And by October, almost every single hirundine will be gone, travelling to their African wintering grounds ready to return next year. The emphasis is on the word almost, because a few plucky Swallow individuals have successfully attempted to overwinter in England! This may sound like interesting news to some, but it shows the effects a warming planet have on our wildlife.

Swifts alone will pass through the airspace of around 25 different countries en-route, proving how well travelled our feathered friends are. They’ll probably get to see more countries than a lot of us ever will.

But the next few generations are facing challenges that their ancestors didn’t have to. And that, unsurprisingly, is thanks to us (we really know how to screw things up don’t we?). According to the latest Breeding Bird Survey, Swifts have dropped by two thirds since 1995, while Swallows are about half as numerous as they once were and should be now. House Martins declined by 57% between 1969 and 2018, and there are many reasons to this. For one, there just aren’t as many insects as there used to be. Use of pesticides, loss of habitat to development and climate change are killing off the pillars that hold up the entire food chain. Without them, society collapses. And that is no exaggeration. On top of this, we seem to despise the very possibility of any other creature living in our houses, including birds nesting. The once clever adaptations to nesting in roof eaves are finally backfiring, with modern housebuilding not allowing for these plucky visitors. And people even buy bird netting to completely prevent the avian world from getting anywhere near them. And this is simply crazy. Has the country rapidly developed a bird phobia? Its not like they’ll do any damage. They simply want to nest in the already existent gaps in your house. Why would you begrudge them this?

And then there’s the problem of our poorer, wetter and colder summers, growing ever less warm and sunny. No Brownie points for guessing why, simply because the answer is staring the whole planet in its deluded face. It is, of course, Climate Change, created by humanity thickening the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and wrapping the planet in a blanket that is far too warm. Thats what’s driving these irregular weather patterns. That’s what’s interrupting evolutionary links that have existed for millennia. That’s what can prove deadly to not just our hirundines, and the whole natural world. We arrived centuries late to the party, and think we can destroy what has existed long before us. This planet’s history. That’s what frustrates me the most. People don’t seem to care for our planet’s past, and how it set itself up to live many millennia into the future.

So, to conclude this hirundine post, these birds are truly incredible. From perilous migrations, to insect chasing acrobatics, their adaptations to a life on the wing make them some of the most accomplished fliers in the avian world. But they need our help, and our society needs to make changes to accommodate not just Swallows, Swifts and Martins, but the entire natural world.

Have you ever noticed a bird looking completely different in the winter, after you’d seen it in the summer? Different colours, patterns and plumages are actually completely normal. Or have you suddenly realised that you’re not seeing as many birds as usual in your garden? There’s likely a few reasons for this, but one of the main causes is that your resident visitors are hunkered down, shedding their old feather tissues and growing new ones.

So what triggers the moult? The process occurs in response to several hormonal changes that are brought about by the change in season. It’s a complex process that we don’t know huge amounts about, because when birds are in moult their main aim is to stay hidden and secretive. Without their feathers in perfect condition, they cannot fly away, which is of course their main defence against predators. Shedding these old and damaged feathers keep the bird largely grounded, and its a risky time for our feathered friends.

Prime time for moulting is the month of August, which of course we have just began. The weather is at its warmest theoretically, and so it is the best opportunity to start this process. Later or earlier in the year, and it’ll be too cold without their main feather insulation. You can see the one flaw in this evolutionary feat. With our summers and Augusts frequently experiencing a lot more rain and low temperatures than in the years gone by, moulting birds will be vulnerable and have to adapt quickly.

Moulting is not painful for the birds involved. Their feathers have evolved to drop out seamlessly and naturally when the time is right. During the year, a bird’s feathers will simply just stop growing, and by now they’ll simply be dead tissues awaiting the hormonal triggers that allow them to just drop off. A dead tissue can be of no more use than it already is, so all species birds grow new ones.

You can identify a moulting bird by missing primary flight feathers, that will leave gaps in the outline of the wing. But for some species its quite a bit easier. The humble Mallard is a duck familiar to many people across the globe, and it among other ducks goes through a several month moulting process in which they achieve a plumage known as the eclipse. They will lose their often brightly coloured plumage and replace it with a dark, plain and sober dress code. Now, define eclipse. It means to cover, hide or deprive something of brightness. Mallards deprive themselves of their stark plumage that is attractive to both females and predators, and moult so during the autumn they are able to camouflage themselves with this drab phase.

Which leads me nicely on to how many times a year birds moult. Birds usually moult once or twice a year. For example, the Black Tailed Godwit has a brick-red head, chest and neck in the breeding season, but during winter it becomes a drab grey and white. This is the same with many waders and waterbirds, with explosive, regal breeding phases and drab, inconspicuous winter plumages. Other birds may only moult once a year, such as the Blue Tit, that quintessential garden bird across most of the UK. If they are visiting the garden this time of year, they’re likely to be looking a bit ruffled in certain places. My resident birds certainly have scruffy head feathers, and that’s because the Blue Tit and many other species undergo the moult in phases. First to go are the covert feathers, the tertials follow, the rest of the body comes penultimately, and finally the head is dealt with.

And that concludes my guide to the moulting season. In general, a moulting bird can take six whole weeks to complete this process, which is actually remarkably quickly when you look at the size of the little things. I hope this blog proved helpful to those who have read it, and that you have learned something new about the avian world!