Nightingales in November (8 page)

With any cold weather continuing in the same vein, those British-breeding Lapwings that escaped the worst of the British winter by hopping over to the continent will probably stay away until closer to the breeding season. For those hardier Lapwings that have either stayed in Britain or are cold weather visitors from the continent, late January will still find them crowding together in large, mobile flocks as they take advantage of whatever feeding opportunities present themselves.

During winter, the Lapwings seem to favour either large areas of mixed and arable farming or improved permanent pasture. Where arable land is more common in central and eastern England, Lapwings are often found in the highest concentrations on winter cereals, but they're quick to move to pastures further west if temperatures continue to drop. It seems that pasture is better at insulating the ground, so the
Lapwings may still be able to dig for earthworms when conditions are freezing elsewhere. Moving to coastal farmland is also an option for any Lapwings really struggling at this time of year, as soil temperatures here tend to be marginally higher than further inland. This is because the sea cools down more slowly than the land in winter, and is the main reason why snow on the coast scarcely settles when compared to inland locations at a similar latitude and altitude.

Historically Bewick's Swans coming to Britain for the winter fed on aquatic and marshland plants in wetland habitats such as flooded pasture. But as large tracts of lowland Britain have been drained and turned over for cultivation to arable land, over the last 40 years many of the swans have switched to feed on root and cereal crops. Certainly in Britain, crops such as sugar beet, winter cereals and potatoes have now become prime feeding areas for large numbers of Bewick's Swans, particularly in eastern England. With the Ouse and Nene Washes thought to hold as many as two-thirds of all overwintering Bewick's Swans in Britain, numbers will still be very high by the end of January. Feeding in fields by day, their roost sites will constantly change during the season, according to the water levels on the Washes. By contrast, the diet of Bewick's Swans that have traditionally settled in more westerly areas of Britain will mostly consist of food from the managed grassland, saltmarsh and flood pasture. For the regular swans at WWT Slimbridge, dusk will see them flying in to roost on the protected freshwater pools with bellies full of grass to digest.

Even in those years when relatively few Waxwings have ventured across the North Sea, the end of January will still see a smattering of records, mainly along the east coast. In a big invasion year, such as the winter of 2012/13 for example, late January recorded Waxwing flocks as widely dispersed as west Cornwall, Anglesey in North Wales and even the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. It seems Rowan, Hawthorn and Cotoneaster may well be favoured by the Waxwings early in the invasion, but they must also compete for these berries with the resident Blackbirds, Song and Mistle Thrushes and other winter visitors such as Fieldfares and Redwings. This means that as their favourite foods become stripped, the Waxwings have to turn to seemingly less favoured food sources, such as Whitebeam, rosehips, Guelder Rose, Crab Apples, domestic apples, Privet and Mistletoe.

BirdTrack Records of Waxwings reported in Britain and Ireland in January 2013.

With the location that British Cuckoos spend the winter being only recently revealed, information as to what they
might actually be eating in the Western Congolian swamp forests or lowland forests of northern Angola is non-existent. In Britain, Cuckoos eat hairy caterpillars, beetles, flies and ants, as well as the females predating eggs and chicks from any nests that they parasitise, and there is no reason to suggest that their diet will deviate dramatically while in Africa. Certainly the forests of the Congo are incredibly biologically diverse, so there must be plenty of invertebrate food on offer for the Cuckoos.

Similarly for Nightingales at this time of the year, there are still far more questions than answers. It's likely that most British-breeding birds are still in the coastal zone between Guinea and Sierra Leone and frequenting savanna woodland, thorny scrub, river gallery forest, humid forest edges and any areas of low secondary growth. Being a ground and perching bird, very fond of keeping to cover and rarely flying out in the open any more than is necessary, it is a safe assumption that they will also be keeping a low profile in West Africa. Before leaving Britain, Nightingales will supplement their insectivorous diet with berries, but it's more likely that on their wintering grounds they will be feeding on beetles, ants and flies caught on the ground and in the undergrowth.

From the little information we have about Puffins feeding away from the colony, the fact that large flocks are virtually never seen out to sea in the winter months suggests that they largely shun company, and being so spread out means they will be feeding at very low densities. Those Puffins that haven't finished their wing moult will still have only a very limited ability to disperse any distance, and it's a fair assumption that when not roosting on the sea, the birds will
divide their time between diving for food and preening at the surface. During the breeding season the Lesser Sandeel tends to dominate the Puffins' diet, but during winter, the fish bury themselves into the sand on the sea floor, instantly making themselves more difficult to catch. This in turn means that the Puffins will be forced to turn to a far more varied diet during winter, consisting of other marine fish, marine worms and even squid.

Because of the far more open nature and visible way in which Swallows go about their feeding business, more is known about their winter diet in southern Africa than for any of our other three summer visitors. It seems that in winter, the Swallows' main prey is flying ants and beetles, but they also take spiders, caddisflies and grasshoppers. They will also take non-flying prey like bugs and caterpillars, with swarming termites thought to be an important part of their diet following rains. While flies are a very important part of a chick's diet in Britain, it seems this prey is less frequently caught in South Africa. Being far more mobile, flies are more difficult to catch, and as the Swallows will still be moulting their tail feathers and outermost primaries at this time, they won't have quite the fine degree of manoeuvrability that they would normally expect, so opt instead for the ‘easy meat' of slower-moving prey.