The autumn winds blew hard towards the end of last week, leaving a strong sense of anticipation for what they may have brought with them…
Following a couple of days of very strong south-westerly winds emanating from the Atlantic and that well-known seabird hotspot the Bay of Biscay, I was hoping for an arrival of storm-blown rarities and I, and watchers across the UK, were not disappointed.
As ever, following the storm, calm and sunny weather has arrived today, so hopefully most of the displaced seabirds are now able to make their way safely back to the coast to continue their normal migration routes.
Tiny grey phalaropes arrive on inland reservoirs and lakes following such strong Atlantic blasts and it seemed as if every county had at least one over the weekend. They can be delightfully confiding and are famed for giving great views. My local patch, Grafham Water, gets them virtually annually and sure enough one was found on Saturday morning alongside an even rarer Cambridgeshire bird – a Manx shearwater.
Grey phalaropes are waders, but are just at home swimming on deep water - a classic storm-driven autumn migrant (Mike Langman - rspb-images.com)
This is a bird Nature’s Home readers should be familiar with following the feature on the Isles of Scilly Seabird Restoration project in the Autumn issue. Seeing one shearing around the windsurfers and sailing boats on Grafham Water was a bizarre sight though. Fortunately, it looked in great shape and was gone the next day, so I’m confident it made it back to sea.
Manx shearwaters are common enough at the coast, but it takes a strong wind to disorientate these masters of the sea (Chris Gomersall rspb-images.com)
Great skuas were on the move in big numbers yesterday as the wind swung from the south-west to the north-west, with a day count of more than 300 in Kent. Three made it to Grafham late in the day along with a passing flock of pink-footed geese that nicely tees up our winter issue, which is an Arctic migrants special. I learned loads about the journeys of our incoming birds from all our great contributors and I hope you will too. Enjoy.
Great skuas are on the move around the coast in autumn and some appear inland. This photo by Andy Hay (rspb-images.com) perfectly captures the character of this "pirate" that forces other seabirds to drop their food.