Nightingales in November (70 page)

Whether Puffins are subject to predation during the winter months is currently unknown, but it's a fair assumption that a combination of poor weather and starvation will surely be the biggest factors preventing these tough little seabirds from seeing the winter through. At most British colonies the Puffins will first start to be seen in the offshore waters from early March onwards, but thanks to the deployment of geolocators attached to a number of Puffins breeding on the Isle of May, it now seems that the first moves in the direction of the breeding grounds are made much earlier. In pioneering work following 13 Puffins out at sea following their dispersal from breeding grounds on the Isle of May, researcher Mike Harris and his team were amazed to discover that ten of these birds quickly left the North Sea for presumably better feeding areas in the Atlantic Ocean. However, by mid-December, all eight of the birds whose devices were still functioning, had returned to the North Sea. This suggests that their wing moult, which will have resulted in a four or five week period of flightlessness, must have finished by then, leaving just the moult into breeding plumage to be carried out. The reason for moving ever closer to the breeding colonies with a full three months yet to go can only be speculated upon, but being a species that is not only site-faithful, but also frequently burrow-faithful, might suggest that ‘the early Puffin will get the burrow'!

Late December

As the nation sits down to enjoy a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, Robins up and down the land will also be
using the season of goodwill as a time to change their tune. Being the only British species to sing persistently throughout the Christmas and New Year period, the Robin's melancholic winter song, which commenced after their annual moult in midsummer, will suddenly become replaced by a much more strident version. This clear signal that spring has just come under starter's orders, will see those males holding territories suddenly declaring their occupancy from much more prominent positions amongst the bare branches. Singing at potentially any time through the day, and even at night, when some urban Robins are tricked by streetlights into thinking dawn is imminent, their characteristic song is capable of considerable variation. A number of the notes even appear to be well above our audible range, making the song sound different and possibly even more impressive to those birds within earshot.

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.