An exciting time occurs on our reserves in April and May when they become migration hotspots. Having crossed the English Channel, many birds will drop into these green spaces to rest and feed. Some will stay all summer but many will continue their migration further inland.
Wheatears are normally one of the first birds to touch down on our shores and have already been spotted along shingle beaches and in open farmland in March. The males have a grey crown and back, black wings and an orange flush to the breast.
Sporting a black patch through its eye and a white stripe above, it flashes its white rump as it flies ahead. It is this flash of white that gave rise to its interesting name, the Old English for ‘white’ being ‘wheat’ and ‘arse’ being ‘ear’.
The smallest of our swallows and martins, the sand martin, was close behind and like the wheatear has spent the winter in Africa. Its upperparts are a uniform brown and underparts white, with a distinct brown band across the chest. They zoom through the skies, fast and agile on pointed wings, catching insects.
The sand martin is named from its nesting habit of digging burrows in sandy cliffs, usually along rivers and over water courses. They nest in colonies and the tunnels can be up to a metre in length.
Now however, as the warmer days encourage leaves to unfurl, flowers to burst forth and in turn, insects to emerge, the majority of our summer visitors are arriving. Common redstarts and pied flycatchers can often be found stopping off behind our Church Norton hide and around the churchyard before heading north to breed.
The male redstart is a stunning bird, with blue-grey upperparts, black face and throat, white forehead and orange breast. It constantly quivers its bright orange tail. Living up to its name, the pied flycatcher darts from a perch to catch flying insects. It is dark on top and white underneath, with a bold white patch on the fold of its wing.
Sitting on shingle beaches, you can watch swallows zooming in. Although they are a similar shape to the martins, their long tail-streamers and reddish-brown faces help to distinguish them.
By contrast, warblers are far less showy. Generally, they are small, often drab and hard to tell apart, that is until they start to sing. There is no sound more characteristic of spring than the downward spiralling song of a willow warbler, with the two-tone, metronome accompaniment of its cousin the chiffchaff.
Garden warblers and blackcaps add sweet melodic songs to the spring soundtrack. Their songs may sound similar but the male blackcap, as its name suggests, has a black cap and its partner, the female, sports a chestnut cap.
The jumbled phrases and harsh churr of whitethroats rise from hedgerows and scrub, mixing with the loud clicks, whistles and rambling chatter of the sedge warblers. Deep in reed beds, the obviously named reed warbler announces its arrival with a continuous rattling conversation, while the much celebrated call of its nemesis, the cuckoo, drifts across the fields.
As all these summer migrants mingle with our resident birds, there is no better time to experience the ‘dawn chorus’. Guides at our reserves will help you spot and recognise summer migrants on our ‘Discover’ walks or to experience the unforgettable aural phenomenon. Sunday, May 5 is International Dawn Chorus Day.
RSPB visitor experience officer Roy Newnham
highlights the summer migrants now flocking to our shores