Nightingales in November (71 page)

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 and 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.