Now in autumn is prime time for some weird and wonderful birds turning up in people's back gardens. It is the time when millions of young birds of many species are beginning their first migration. Some can just go a little awry and wander a few hundred metres off course into the unfamiliar territory of gardens. Some get it hopelessly wrong and end up a few thousand miles off their intended route.For me, the couple of Chiffchaffs that spent a few happy days in and around my back garden were definitely the former. They flood the coastal scrublands down here in their dozens as they pass through heading south in September and early October, and my garden with its insect-rich Sycamores and pond clearly suit them almost as well.My parents up in Worcestershire got something a little bit more unusual. It could well have been a British-bred bird, but a rural back garden is not where you'd expect to find a Wheatear. These 'white-arsed' little birds (it's where the name Wheatear comes from - 'wheat' and 'ears' have nothing to do with it) breed up on our moorlands and mountains, and migrants are regular along many a coastal field or clifftop right now. But down amongst flowerborders and shrubberies is not where it should have been.Most unfortunately, they discovered it only because it flew into the dining room window and died. It is a fate for many young birds, and in this case was probably a bird that may never have encountered a window before in its life.
I'm sure many of you will have had a window strike this year. With 16 million households in the UK, it seems quite feasible that several million birds meet their fate that way each year.
It is a good reminder to put up those silhouette window stickers of hawks to scare birds off and attempt to reduce the death toll.
I had a few days off up in Norfolk where this Wheatear was in much more familiar territory - in open ground grabbing the vantage point of a fencepost from where to dart into the grasslands after insects. But it just shows who knows what you'll find in your garden right now - keep your eyes peeled.