Wryneck in Wiltshire and other migrants.

Hi All

We received a great sighting today from Sharon and Paul Cranch in Wiltshire who had a Wryneck in their garden. The wryneck is still a regular autumn migrant in small numbers to sites in eastern and southern coasts, and a few are seen each spring. Occasionally seen in gardens in autumn. Best looked for on autumn passage in August and September but can be seen in spring, usually May. There are as little as 280 UK passage birds.

Paul & Sharon Cranch 2011

Many bird populations migrate long distances. The most common pattern involves flying north in the spring to breed in the temperate or Arctic summer and returning in the autumn to wintering grounds in warmer regions to the south such as Africa. Of course, in the Southern Hemisphere the directions are reversed, but there is less land area in the far South to support long-distance migration.

The motivation for migration appears to be food; Also, the longer days of the northern summer provide extended time for breeding birds to feed their young. This helps birds to produce larger clutches than related non-migratory species that remain in the tropics. As the days shorten in autumn, the birds return to warmer regions where the available food supply varies little with the season.

Food shortages were the apparent reason for our “Waxwing winter”. Scandinavian waxwing migrants came to the UK in abundance due to our winter fruit and various suitable feeding sites. Although many waxwings have now returned north, we are still getting some reports here at wildlife enquiries.

Records of bird migration were made 3000 years ago by Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus and Aristotle. The Bible also notes migrations, as in the Book of Job (39:26), where the inquiry is made: "Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom and stretch her wings toward the south?" The author of Jeremiah (8:7) wrote: "The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed time; and the turtledove, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming."

Aristotle noted that cranes traveled from the steppes of Scythia to marshes at the headwaters of the Nile. Pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, repeats Aristotle's observations. Aristotle however suggested that swallows and other birds hibernated. This belief persisted as late as 1878, when Elliott Coues listed the titles of no less than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. It was not until early in the nineteenth century that migration as an explanation for the winter disappearance of birds from northern climes was accepted.

As we go into the warmer weather keep an eye out for those returning migrants. I saw my first Swallow this morning sat on the telephone wire near where I live. A great sight but remember…one swallow does not a summer make!