Nightingales in November (9 page)

February

The weather in February could best be described as ‘a curate's egg', or ‘good in parts'. On a cloudless sunny day it can feel like spring is bursting forth, only for the following day to bring the harsh reality of winter crashing back down with snow, ice and a brutal northerly wind. With the weather effectively operating like meteorological roulette, the cold, wet and windy days will see our resident birds hunkering down and committing to little more than finding sufficient food to see them through the nights. Better days, however, will kick start the mating game.

Tradition says that Valentine's Day on 14 February is supposed to be the date when our resident birds pair up, and indeed this certainly seems to be the case for birds like the Kingfisher and Lapwing. But many of our resident species, such as Robins, Blue Tits, Peregrines and Tawny Owls, will have already found their partner well before this
romantic date and are by now looking to take their relationships on to the next level. Irrespective of their state of readiness, any of our year-round residents will still be further along the breeding process compared to our summer and winter visitors, which will only just be ambling up to the starting blocks in the great race to mate.

Early February

Having secured their territory for the oncoming breeding season, an established pair of Peregrines will use the first fine days of February to strengthen their pair bonds. For Peregrine watchers this represents the start of an exciting few weeks as the pair undertake spectacular courtship manoeuvres on the wing. Co-operative hunting between the male and female can figure highly in these early courting activities. Joining forces to hunt the same bird, the pair will often coordinate their attacks to counter any evasion attempts by their target. By swooping at a flock, in what may amount to nothing more than a dummy run, the male's job will be to try and part an individual from the fold, which then acts as a cue for the larger and more powerful female to stoop at the bird using the element of surprise. Any prey caught successfully in this way will then usually be eaten by the female to ensure her body is in as good a condition as possible for the physical rigours of egg laying ahead.

With the mixed feeding flocks slowly beginning to disintegrate, the first signs of territorial activity amongst Blue Tits will now become apparent on fine days. The winter can prove a savage time for Blue Tits, with only 50% of adults making it through to breed from one year to the
next. For the juveniles, of course, it has been an even steeper learning curve since they fledged the previous summer, with a whopping 90% succumbing along the way to starvation, disease or predation. This would suggest that the average pair of Blue Tits may well consist of one experienced bird and another attempting to breed for the first time.

Fine days in early February represent the first time that the male Blue Tits will endeavour to lay down a territorial marker by cranking up their singing from a series of prominent perches. Although not quite hitting the complexity or beauty of either the Robin or Nightingale's overtures it is nevertheless a pleasing little song. Sounding like ‘
see, see, see-chu chu chu
', with the latter section ending in a short trill, this song will be heard increasingly frequently as the month wears on.

Those Robins heard singing ardently in early February will mostly consist of as yet unpaired males or birds still sorting out territorial issues. Males that have already managed to bag a female by this stage will now begin to sing in a much more subdued manner. Their first few days as a couple will be spent with the male following his new mate around as she explores their now jointly owned territory. It seems she has to learn the boundaries by trial and error, with any incursions into adjacent territories resulting in her being swiftly rebuffed by her new neighbours.

By contrast, having held firm all winter, and possibly even for a number of years, any established pair of Tawny Owls will already be very familiar with the size and shape of their territory. From a range of studies carried out across Britain it seems a Tawny Owl pair's territory can cover anywhere between 12 and 70 hectares, with dimensions depending
largely on the quality of the habitat, food availability and density of other Tawnies in the area. The choice of a precise nesting spot within the territory may be a formality if one particular site has been used successfully the previous year. Alternatively, they may attempt to ring the changes following a previous nesting failure. Preparations in the nesting chamber are none too elaborate and amount to little more than the female excavating a shallow scrape that will ultimately hold her clutch, in little more than a month.

Finally shaking themselves out of their winter torpor, early February will see our Kingfishers turning their attentions for the first time to the busy summer ahead. The minority of Kingfishers which held summer territories in more northerly or upland sites, but spent the winter in more benign lowland or coastal locations, may well now be beginning to return to their breeding grounds. Certainly the majority of males will have been holed up on their breeding territories all winter and so have no need to move, but many females will now have to up sticks in order to track down a mate. Kingfishers are mostly monogamous, but won't necessarily pair with the same partner from year to year. It does seem, however, that in those cases when a pair does reunite, it tends to be in those locations where their previous joint summer territory had been cleaved into two winter territories.

While still not quite ready to return to their breeding locations, as the time for departure rapidly approaches, Lapwing flocks will suddenly become far more restless. Bickering between birds can often be seen around this time and sudden erratic flights by birds around the flock can introduce a certain collective skittishness. When birds chase
each other on the ground, they will do so with their wings raised to show their striking white wing-linings and use their broad black breast-band to both impress and intimidate. These actions are all dress rehearsals for the territorial and courtship behaviour that will soon be used in earnest on their breeding grounds.

Before departure, from early February onwards, the Lapwings will also undergo a partial moult. Having already completed a full moult between late May and September of the previous year, to insulate them from the worst of the winter, this pre-breeding replacement of feathers on the head, neck and upper breast has an entirely different function – to look good. The change is most marked in the males, as they now develop their characteristic long, wispy crests, boldly marked black and white faces and striking black breast-bands.