Nightingales in November (56 page)

Unlike the largely sedentary British subspecies, migration amongst continental Blue Tits is much more commonplace, particularly in those years when a series of successful breeding seasons can combine to impose such a strain on the amount of food that a substantial number will have little choice other than to inundate coastal areas of Britain. Identifiable with a keen eye, the continental Blue Tits tend to be slightly larger and brighter than their British counterparts and while it's little more than guesswork as to how many of these birds arrive each year, very occasionally the influx can be huge. The celebrated ornithologist Stanley Cramp collated data from the autumn of 1957 when hundreds of Blue Tits were recorded at a whole host of migration watch points along easterly and southerly coasts. With reports of an influx of
447 Blue Tits at Sandwich Bay in Kent and 460 recorded at Portland in Dorset in early October, Cramp thought that these birds then moved inland to spend the winter in Britain. The departure of these continental birds is believed to have occurred gradually, as they returned overseas any time from January the following year, right the way through to March or April.

Also continuing to arrive in good numbers in order to bask in our maritime climate, as continental Lapwings begin rubbing shoulders with resident birds, this should push the total population currently in Britain towards an annual high. Certainly the resident Lapwing which bred here should by now be completing the moult that will see them through winter and beyond, ultimately making both sexes look much more similar until a partial pre-breeding moult early in spring once again differentiates the sexes. The young Lapwings that fledged in the summer, by contrast, will be only halfway through a partial moult not likely to be finished until December, and so can still easily be picked out from the flocks by their shorter crests, scalloped backs and wings and incomplete breast-bands. Like their parents, these immature birds will also undergo a partial breeding moult in the New Year, but will not be finally indistinguishable from their parents until the completion of their first full moult, which will be carried out after their initial breeding attempt.

Needing to complete a full moult themselves, it's likely that the adult Kingfishers will not have replaced all their feathers until November at the earliest. As the old primaries are often not shed until the new ones are sufficiently well grown, the replacement of flight feathers will certainly take
far longer than that of the body moult which should already have been completed. When the juvenile moult is carried out will depend on which brood the young Kingfishers were reared from. Confining their first moult to all the feathers apart from those responsible for flight, juveniles from earlier broods may have started growing new feathers by July, while birds fledging from much later broods will probably not be able to start their post-juvenile moult until at least December.

With juvenile Kingfishers leaving the nest during a period spanning more than four months, their moulting process will be a much more staggered affair compared to that of Peregrine youngsters which, irrespective of the location of the nest, are likely to fledge within the month of June. Looking decidedly streaky and brown throughout their first winter, it will not be until they are 18 months to two years of age that the young Peregrines will finally begin to resemble their parents.

As the juveniles make do with their first set of feathers for the time being, the adult Peregrines by contrast should be reaching the final stages of a complete moult that may have begun as early as April or even March. Needing to remain highly effective in the air at all times, the female is thought to begin the all-important wing moult after laying her third egg, while the male will often delay until the young begin hatching. The flight feathers are often replaced carefully in sequence, starting with the fourth of the ten primaries. The replacement then slowly radiates from this point both towards the wing tip and the body. While the body feathers are moulted at the same time as those belonging to the wings, the tail feathers are started later, but should still have been completely replaced by the time the outermost primaries reach their full extent. During this time, the gaps
created by feathers being actively replaced will make the adults slightly less efficient at both flying and catching prey. In cases where this severely hampers their ability to catch food, the moult can sometimes be suspended to a time when prey is more plentiful.

As the temperature drops and the nights lengthen, a large part of the Puffins' day is thought to consist of finding enough food to eat as they prepare to change their primaries, an action that will render the Puffins flightless for a short, sharp period, contrasting with the ‘slow but sure' technique as exemplified by birds such as Kingfishers and Peregrines.

Having completed their annual moult at least a month before, adult Robins at this stage will still be battling away both with each other and any young Robins for the possession of those all-important territories. With disputes often settled by singing and when necessary fighting, instances of Robins actually killing one another are thought to be very unusual. One of the reasons why mortal combat occurs rarely is that while grappling on the ground they are suddenly far more vulnerable to predation. So it is far more common for the defeated Robin to be ejected with little more than the loss of just a few feathers and a serious dent to its pride as it lives to fight another day.

In addition to the Robins busily jockeying for position, early October will also see adult Tawny Owls exercising their lungs as they begin laying claim to their territory for the winter and beyond. The hoot of a male Tawny Owl is
surely one of the most familiar sounds of nature in Britain, as the call commences with a drawn-out ‘
hooo
', followed by a more subdued ‘
hu
', which then cues up the final ‘
huhuhuhooo
' note, which is particularly notable for its strong vibrato quality. This incredibly striking and iconic call can cut right through the silence of a cool moonlit night in autumn, and while the female is capable of uttering a reasonably similar call to her partner, her version tends to be distinctly more strangled and less well phrased. Far more characteristic of the female is the explosive ‘
kee-wik!
' contact call, which can also be uttered by the male too and is believed to be used as a means of communicating their respective locations in the dark. As well as declaring territorial rights, the various Tawny vocalisations also serve to clearly mark out boundaries, advertise for a mate where the male happens to be single and to further strengthen the bonds of an established pair. Often resorting to duets, this represents a clear message to any owls tempted to trespass, that the territory is not only occupied, but is occupied by a strong, unified pair. When the male does tag his territorial hoot onto his mate's contact call, this is thought to represent the derivation of the ‘
twit-twoo
' which every schoolchild knows to be the classic sound of an owl!

Mid-October

No two Waxwing invasions ever develop in the same manner, but certainly in most irruption years the first birds will have already made the trip over the North Sea to Britain from southern Norway and Sweden by the middle of October. The first locations to welcome Waxwings tend to be those geographically closest to Scandinavia, with good numbers in Shetland, Orkney and north-east Scotland often providing a clear signal that a massed Scandinavian invasion
is imminent. As numbers along Britain's northern and eastern seaboards increase, this gregarious and sociable little bird can suddenly be seen congregating at any sites offering an abundance of food. Led by their stomachs to parks, gardens, supermarket car parks and anywhere berry-laden trees are planted as ornamentals, certainly one place that invariably seems to acquire more than its fair share of these winter visitors is the coastal city of Aberdeen. Nicknamed the ‘Waxwing Capital of Britain', a number of Aberdeen's tree-lined streets have become proven ‘hotspots' early on in a Waxwing winter.