Autumn visitors

With the days and nights getting cooler and drawing in, our winter migrants are back.

For me personally, it is the waders that I look forward to seeing again. The Common & Jack Snipes are especially welcome.

Small long billed waders with cryptic plumage, that disguises them so well in the wetland environment. Feeding by probing that long bill, up and down at a rapid rate into the mud. It sometimes seems at speeds similar to a sewing machine.

Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwits have returned, without their showy breeding colours but still just as elegant as ever. They way they were feverishly feeding, was an indication of how hungry they are after their travels from up North. Every time muddy wetland shores are lost to development, makes it harder for these birds to find food. Most return to the same place every year and if that location has been lost, they do not readily find other suitable places to feed. We now know, that every year the new youngsters who migrate, are able to modify their destination, but for the oldies, it's tough.

The plans to build a new airport for Lisbon in Portugal at the Targus estuary is a disaster for the Eastern Atlantic Flyaway. Estimates predict a loss up to 30% of the intertidal feeding areas for wintering migrants alone. You can imagine the global impact when we count the roosting and passage birds as well. Conservation efforts in other locations will be impacted by this decision. In the last 100 years, we have already lost 65% of wetlands worldwide, so it's difficult to watch politicians making decisions to reduce that figure further.

On a more positive note, this month I have been treated to sightings of our Common Kingfishers, what a smile they bring. Seeing the blue flashes, darting around the lakes at El Hondo is a joy. Less easy to capture with a camera!

Needed my binoculars to find where it had landed across the water, sitting on overhanging reeds. I watched as it took a few dives into the water but came up empty beaked each time. Suddenly it darted across the lake and settled 15 meters to my right, facing into the sun! Wonderful to just admire it's plumage and colours, as it sat with the usual head bopping, looking around. Not a care about me sitting so close, daring not to breath as if that would scare it away. I managed a few hurried pictures, before it decided to fly off round the corner to a different part of the lake. What a special bird they are.

The usual suspects are still present, Greater Flamingos, Glossy Ibis, Great, Little & Cattle Egrets, sometimes in huge numbers. Farmers flood fields to water winter crops (often drawing water from illegal wells but that's for another time) and the Cattle Egrets somehow know. They arrive in their hundreds, pecking insects from every available centimeter on the plot.

Other winter visitors I am enjoying again are the Black Redstarts, we have a female who roosts on our house and she arrived back last week for the third year in a row. It makes us feel very privaledged.

Which visitors are you seeing this month, are some passing through or are they there for the winter?

Feel free to share your experiences, especially of postive outcomes and sightings. We sure have all heard of the vagrancies blown across the Atlantic to the UK and Netherlands. Spain has had some as well, amongst others we have seen Pink Footed Geese, Brant, Mute Swans, American Black Duck, a Surf Scoter and the most unusual, a Belted Kingfisher.

Happy birding!