Migrants at last!

It's been a while coming, but finally the summer migrants are making their way onto our shores. The cold weather has seemingly delayed birds such as Swallows, House Martins, Redstarts, Ring Ouzels and Wheatears, to name a few, from making their way to Britain for the summer months, but now these are all coming, in their droves!

The past couple of days have been a bit crazy in the Peterborough area, with several Redstarts being seen, we are lucky to see more than a couple in the Spring, but this year up to 8 individuals have been present in various sites. Common Terns have started patrolling the lakes at Ferry Meadows and Deeping and huge numbers of Wheatears have been present at a couple of locations. 14 of these birds were seen in a field close to the village of Yaxley and yesterday there were 17 in a field close to the village of Ailsworth where there was also the only Ring Ouzel to be reported so far this year.

At Maxey/Etton gravel pits there were 3 Wheatears present (the male in these photos), a female and a Greenland type male. Also present were up to 6 Yellow Wagtails with one showing signs of being from the flava race, or Blue-headed Wagtail if you prefer and a Common Sandpiper.

I suppose all good things come to those who wait!

Northern Wheatear (from the archive)

A couple of shots showing two different male Wheatears taken earlier in the year at Maxey gravel pits. The bottom bird is, I think, a younger male as his `mask` is not quite as defined as the top bird. It won`t be long now until they start to make their return journey and they could well stop off at Maxey on their way through.

Male Wheatear

This male Wheatear has been hanging around Maxey gravel pits for the past few days and has become more accustomed to a strange man approaching him with scope and camera in hand.

Damp around the edges

This last week or so has been a bit wet in the Peterborough area, curtailing my birding exploits somewhat. It is possibly the wettest drought on record! Other than the excitement at the weekend of an Iberian Chiffchaff seen at Castor Hanglands, a bird that is now courting controversy due to its` tendency of singing Chiffchaff songs as well as typical Iberian song, the birds on offer have been what is expected at this time of year. The Wheatears are still passing through the area and now the warblers and Nightingales are starting to appear and sing for territory, I have even heard a `booming` Bittern at an undisclosed site, increasing my PBC year list nicely. The birds though, as well as me are now getting a bit damp around the edges.

A pair of Wheatears

At this time of year the summer migrants are beginning to appear in our area. Some are arriving to set up territories, others are just passing through on their way to their breeding grounds further north and west. One of the latter birds is the Wheatear, a bird that tends to only be seen on passage in the PBC area, but is a guaranteed annual tick for my year list. This year the bird was added to the list yesterday, 3 days later than last year and not by a single bird, but a pair were seen at a place called Eldernell, which is part of the RSPB reserve at the Nene Washes. The above digiscoped photos show the male in the top one and the female in the other two.

Wheatear

The first Wheatear on Autumn migration appeared at Maxey GP the other day. The bird was only present for the morning of the 19th and has obviously moved on somewhere else to continue its migration to Africa. Hopefully it will survive and return next Spring, perhaps even stopping off at Maxey as it passes through on its way to its breeding grounds!

A few more Wheatear shots

Digiscoped using Canon Powershot A640 and Kowa TSN-883 x30

This Wheatear has been present at Maxey GP for approximately 2 weeks now and is showing no signs of moving on! The bird seems to be quite happy feeding on the rabbit cropped grass and is almost ignoring me when I walk by, enabling me to get fairly close to her.

Another Wheatear

Have been away for a few days and so have not had a chance to get out and do any birding, so here are some shots of a male Wheatear that I managed to see last week. This bird was, again at Maxey GP and was favouring the bank where the rabbits have kept the grass nice and short and their burrows provide some good cover for the Wheatears.

All digiscoped using Canon Powershot A640 and Kowa TSN-883 x30

Female Wheatear

Digiscoped using Canon Powershot A640 and Kowa TSN-883 x30

Another visit to Maxey GP yesterday produced another Wheatear. This time it was a female, which provides a chance to compare the two sexes. This bird is a lot sandier in colouration and the face is not as well marked, but still a lovely bird. The white rump is clearly visible in this photo. The bird was a lot jumpier and it took me ages to get a shot of her after she decided to perch up on a tree just before the rain came.

First Wheatear of the year

Digiscoped using Canon Powershot A640 and Kowa TSN-883 x30

After a couple of visits to Maxey GP in the hope of seeing my first returning Wheatear I finally succeeded in seeing a lovely male today.

The Wheatear is a bird that comes to Britain in the summer months to breed mainly in the western and northern parts of the country, but during migration it can be seen all over the place (I have even seen one on return migration on the pitch at The Oval cricket ground in Surrey)! Maxey GP is a place where you are likely to see a few birds on their journey and over the next few weeks there will be more.

The bird is larger than a Robin, neat, sleak and short-tailed with an extensive area of white on the rump and upper tail, indeed its name is a corruption of `white-arse`. The male is blue-grey with black wings and white underparts with an orange flush on the breast. It has black cheeks and a white stripe over the eye and across the forehead. In the autumn after moulting it is much browner but retains its dark cheeks and the pale stripe over the eye (known as the supercilium). The female is sandy brown with a less well-marked face and browner wings. The juvenile has spotted/mottled upperparts and breast.

The Wheatear breeds in rocky/stony places, upland pastures with dry-stone walls and on moorland. It also breeds on short grassland in lowland areas, often in coastal areas. They lay between 4 and 7 eggs and these are brooded by the female and they take around 13 days to hatch when the young are fed by both the male and female. The young leave the nest at around 10 days old and can fly from 15 days where they become independant after 28-32 days.

The birds start to arrive in Britain between March and May, with most starting to leave in August. Movement is south-west through Europe and many land on the coast of North Africa before setting off again for their wintering grounds in central Africa. The slightly larger Greenland race of this bird migrates from Africa to its breeding grounds in the Arctic. On its return journey it flies non-stop for 30 hours and 2,400 km from Greenland to western Europe!

There are over 55,000 pairs of this bird that breed in Britain and Ireland, but over the past 60 years they have suffered a slight decline. This could be due to a number of factors, including the ploughing of old grasslands and successive droughts in Africa.