Nightingales in November (59 page)

By observing and painting these birds from his observatory home at Slimbridge, it was Sir Peter Scott who first realised that the colouring and patterns of each Bewick's bill was as unique to each bird as fingerprints are to humans. Able to place each Swan into one of three basic bill categories – yellow-neb, black-neb and penny-face – within these groups he then looked at infinitely subtle variations, together with a range of other distinctive features, to provide a name for every bird visiting the reserve. It was only when he could systematically identify different individuals that Scott realised many of the Swans were in fact incredibly faithful to
Slimbridge, often returning year after year. Over 50 years after this pioneering research work was initiated, Scott's ‘Facebook for Swans' is still being actively compiled at Slimbridge today, with the bill patterns of over 7,600 adults having been recorded and computerised. This ability to identify each individual animal upon its return has also enabled researchers to uncover a wealth of information about these long-lived birds, such as their survival rates, familial relationships and how the hierarchies operate within the flock. The project has shown, for example, that between 40 and 50% of all the adults and yearlings recorded in any one year are birds that will have visited Slimbridge during at least one, or more, previous seasons – in essence Bewick's Swans are creatures of habit.

Upon the swans' arrival there will be two immediate priorities – feeding up to put on weight after the long, physically demanding migration and quickly establishing their position within the dominance hierarchy. Unfettered access to both prime feeding sites and safe roosting locations are incredibly important, but how well the swans eat and sleep will largely depend on their social standing within the flock. With so much at stake upon their return it is perhaps no surprise that aggressive behaviour, in the form of physical and vocal displays, promptly comes to the fore as the swans jockey for position. As they attempt to assert their dominance, any swans still remaining part of a family unit will find that by sticking together they will collectively be able to elevate the status of their group considerably. Those pairs that successfully bred in the summer, and with accompanying youngsters prepared to back their parents in any fight, will use their numbers to form a powerful cartel easily able to bulldoze cygnet-less pairs and singletons out of the way. In fact, so appealing are these family groups that some birds may even roll back the years to re-join forces with their parents on the wintering grounds, in the knowledge that they'll not only be enhancing their own position, but
also bolstering their family's standing even further up the pecking order.

Equally gregarious, but with aggression a far less significant part of their daily lives when compared to the quarrelsome Bewick's, the Waxwings will continue to pour across the North Sea as October draws to a close. The city of Aberdeen's location in relation to south-west Norway, and its streets lined with ornamental fruit-bearing trees, means it invariably figures prominently in the early stages of an invasion. Dashing between feeding trees and prominent perches, the Waxwings' fast, direct flight on triangular-shaped wings can make them appear strikingly similar to Starlings when seen in silhouette. Their accompanying ‘tinkling bell' contact call, however, should be more than enough to confirm the identity of this most distinctive and delightful of winter visitors, even in poor light.

Unfortunately it is this characteristic low and direct flight that can also make them particularly vulnerable in towns and cities, where a potential hazard lurks around every corner. Waxwings, for example, are considered particularly susceptible when it comes to colliding with windows, and in the invasion year of 2004/05, out of 87 Waxwings reported dead, 66% had collided with these most invisible of obstacles. With multiple fatalities frequently reported from the same site the most perilous locations seem to be when windows are either situated nearby, or directly in between, a regular food source and their favoured perching points, like TV aerials. One particular street in Aberdeen called Wallfield Crescent, where Rowan trees grow between tenement blocks, was nicknamed the ‘Waxwing graveyard' after eight were picked up dead over a short space of time during 2008. At another traditional site in the city, a recently erected bus shelter which was unfortunately screened by trees
subsequently accounted for a further eight fatalities in the same year, until a Good (ornithological) Samaritan sprayed the back of the shelter blue to prevent any further incidents.

Currently believed to be in the Western Sahara, as they slowly work their way south along the thin coastal strip of vegetation separating the ocean from the desert, flying into man-made objects should be the least of the Nightingales' worries as they traverse this incredibly sparsely populated terrain. Western Sahara is currently a disputed territory between Morocco to the north and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, strongly backed by Algeria, to the extreme north-east. Consisting of mostly flat desert, the territory contains some of the most arid and inhospitable land on the planet, and despite occasionally experiencing flash flooding in the spring, has no permanent streams. Despite being marginally larger than the UK, the Western Sahara's entire population is less than that of the city of Sheffield, with many living in Laâyoune, the territory's only city of note. Unsurprisingly, given the barren nature of the terrain, employment opportunities are limited, with two-thirds of the entire workforce either engaged in fishing or phosphate mining. Eking out an existence on any invertebrates or berries encountered as they pick their way through the drought-tolerant bushes and shrubs of this politically and climatically inhospitable terrain, the Nightingales will certainly be looking forward to the far richer feeding opportunities offered up by Senegal and The Gambia in November.

Hardly a model of peace itself in recent decades, the Congo Basin should already have been playing host to most of the British-breeding Cuckoos for much of the month. Satellite telemetry has recently revealed that many will spend most
of the winter residing in a huge ecological region called the Western Congolian swamp forests, a little-visited habitat centred around the mighty Congo River and which straddles the Republic of Congo to the west and the larger Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) to the east. When the Western Congolian swamp forests are combined with similar habitat further east, the combined area is thought to form one of the largest continuous areas of freshwater swamp forest in the world. With these forests considered to be largely pristine due to access being almost impossible, it is likely that the Cuckoos will still be actively moulting as they feed away in these lush, impenetrable forests. At this stage of the year the Cuckoos will have no desire to attract either a mate or attention, so will probably spend most of their time keeping to the shadows and maintaining radio silence as the males save their renowned voices for their return to Britain.

Despite being spread over several countries, the overwintering distribution of Cuckoos is thought to cover a much smaller geographical area than that of the Puffins out of the breeding season, which by now will have dispersed far and wide. Apart from the work carried out by Mike Harris's team placing geolocators on Puffins from the Isle of May, the only other data on winter distribution comes from ringed Puffins that have subsequently been shot out at sea, caught in fish nets or recovered following severe weather or pollution incidents. Eastern Canada frequently reports Puffins from its waters, but with only four confirmed Scottish records in 50 years it would seem the majority of Puffins sighted here are coming from colonies on Iceland, Norway and Greenland. This paucity of records, despite the large numbers of Puffins ringed at some colonies, might well suggest that this huge journey right across the Atlantic
may well be more of an exception than the norm. The countries with most recoveries of British-ringed Puffins are France and Spain, with the very limited data suggesting that the majority of these Puffins may well come from south-western locations around Britain, such as the puffinry found on Skomer Island, off the coast of west Wales.

All records of Puffins ringed in Britain and Ireland and subsequently recovered abroad.