Spring bird migration highlights
Post categories: Springwatch,ÌýThe Curious Owl
| 16:34 UK time, Monday, 28 March 2011
The weather's been glorious and the migratory birds have been making the most of it, according to Paul Stancliffe at the . The settled conditions and resulting light winds have meant, in his words, "it has been all systems go." Here are some of the spring bird migration highlights of the last week.
As we reported earlier, swallows and sand martins had been making steady progress. By Monday last week, the former had reached Cumbria and the latter Lothian in Scotland (the earliest record they've had there). Now, both have reached northern Scotland. As have the .
The - always later migrants than other members of their family - are , with small numbers spotted in Cheshire last week.
Any news of the ospreys' return to their breeding sites is always eagerly awaited. And so far it's looking good. The first to return - a 14-year-old male bird nicknamed 'Mr Rutland' - . On Thursday, 'EJ', a female 14-year-old, returned to RSPB Scotland's Loch Garten reserve in the Highlands. Meanwhile, the is .
But arrival time for some inevitably means departure time for others. So this week we start to say goodbye to (flocks seen heading north over Yorkshire) and starlings and fieldfares (both observed heading out to sea off the east coast).
, the undisputed bird stars of last autumn and winter, can still be found right across the country. For a taster, take a look at the recent comments on our waxwing sighting blog post - they're still coming in thick and fast. So if you haven't yet seen one, there's still hope.
The latest, from Sue in Chichester, West Sussex, was yesterday: "Saw nine waxwings perched on a neighbour's aerial. Never seen this bird before. Grabbed the binoculars then checked the RSPB website to identify. Ironic that these winter visiting birds should be seen on the very morning we changed the clocks to British Summer time!"
Of course, migration season also brings plenty of unusual visitors. Sightings made to the BTO last week include a (Suffolk), three (Isles of Scilly, Suffolk and East Yorkshire), three more (Devon, Cornwall and Dorset) and a (Lancashire).
If you're interested in keeping an eye on spring's arrivals, has animated maps for most of the common species.
Comment number 1.
At 30th Mar 2011, Angie Silver wrote:Wow waxwings - that would be an amazing sight. I was chuffed this morning when looking at my feeding station to see my gold finches had returned for another year - they are so beautiful.
It made me happy to see that it was a great idea not to cut down my old evnening primrose and leave them to go to seed - the goldfinches love them and I left them to go to work happy stripping the evening primrose seeds.
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Comment number 2.
At 6th Apr 2011, thesilentswallow wrote:Seen Swallows already, only 3! 5th April 7:15! Its very early for them, the pheasents are out aswell. Breeding season though. We live on a old farm in the countryside Nottinghamshire, and there is bundles of animals! Even hot weather exetremely early.
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Comment number 3.
At 7th Apr 2011, christine wrote:I've just seen my first swallow of the year at Henley near Ipswich where I live.. that's really early.. must be a sign that summer is on it's way!
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