AUTUMN MIGRATIONS '25

 Autumn Migrations '25

In autumn, many bird species, unable to survive a colder climate, move from their breeding grounds to their winter quarters, sometimes over thousands of miles. Birds often exist in a state of flux; on the wing in a great patterning of weather, pushing and pulling them around the globe. Some, like this weeks-old willow warbler, weigh as little as 9 grammes (about the same as a £1 coin) and leave Norfolk on a journey of over 3000 miles across continents, seas and deserts in order to winter in sub-Saharan Africa before returning to perpetuate the process the following summer. It is an incredible feat.

There are those like the swallow, whose comings and goings are culturally embedded, seasonal markers. Their congregation in September, twittering on telephone wires like notes on a musical stave, is a sure sign of  'zugunruhe' or 'migratory restlessness'. It is the same flickering agitation one sees in feeding flocks of knot or golden plover when the flash of a wing prefigures an eruption of birds, only now writ large across populations about to launch southwards.

But, as one iconic bird departs, another arrives. The long skeins and clamorous calls of the pink-footed geese turn all heads to the sky as thousands descend on Norfolk from their breeding grounds in Spitsbergen, Iceland and Greenland.

Norfolk's rounded rump, sticking out into the North Sea is a welcoming geography for migrating birds, especially waders needing the rich food supplies of The Wash and the saltmarshes which corrugate the  north coast. The natural clock is turning to autumn just as we are entering high summer when the whinnying call of the whimbrel, heading for West Africa from northern tundra and moorlands, is heard as early as July.  

Unsurprisingly, some birds, especially inexperienced juveniles, are blown off course by strong winds or forced to land in heavy rain. This is when birdwatchers are out in force, searching for rare and unusual birds temporarily grounded in Norfolk. This young red-backed shrike, a species which once bred in the county but is now a scarce passage bird, spent several days stocking up on hawthorn berries at Thornham before hopefully righting itself for a loop around south-east Europe, the Middle East and thence to Africa.

In early October, there were contrasting versions of migration with a short-toed lark blown north from southern Europe to Snettisham's shingle rather than south to the semi-arid Sahel region...

 …while groups of crossbills flew south to Holkham Pines from Scandinavia and on into the Brecks thereafter.

In November, several Pallas's and Hume's Warblers were found, rare vagrants from Siberia and central Asia. These tiny birds are full of colour and energy, foraging quickly in the canopy and most often located and identified by their distinctive calls. The Pallas's I saw was amongst a tit flock, moving through Holkham Pines, but the three Hume's, two in the Pines and one in Wells Woods, were all happy in their own company and loyal to small areas of woodland or scrub.

Photos of Pallas's and Hume's Warblers courtesy of Ashley Saunders (@Oriole_Ashley )