October the time for rare birds

In the bird-watching world, October is the month for rare birds in the UK. As you are aware birds all over Europe, Asia and the Americas are migrating to and from their breeding and wintering grounds at this time.

The avian highways are frantic at this time of year and unfortunately many of the birds become disorientated and lost. The reasons birds ‘go the wrong way’ are complex and there are many reasons why a bird heading to South East Asia may turn up in Britain. The majority of the ‘rare’ visitors are young inexperienced birds who have simply gone the wrong way and keep going in the hope of arriving at the right place, unfortunately they don’t and they arrive in UK, many thousands of miles from their intended destinations.

Weather is another key reason for rare bird arrivals, a bird heading east for example may well be faced with a huge weather front moving in the opposite direction! This front may well have driving rain and gale force winds, the smaller species simply get caught up within the system and are carried along, almost against their will and deposited in an area they had no intention of going to in the first place…..a little like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz!

So when the birds find themselves in a foreign land, what next? Some birds unfortunately die, exhaustion, lack of correct food of predated. Others survive and feed up, then keep moving in the hope of finding their way back, many never get to where they are meant to be going but simply exist by themselves roaming and settling into suitable habitat on a different continent….. How long they survive is anyone’s guess.

So if you go to see one of these rare stragglers, please spare a thought and wish them well, fingers crossed, they may just make it home!