Small birds on an ancient trail;Feather Report;Outdoors
Derwent May
12 March 1994 [from the London Times]


THE FIRST summer migrants will be back in Britain next week. Here
and there, on the downs or on a playing field, people will see a
dapper grey bird flicking its tail and bobbing up and down as it
looks for insects in the grass. When it flies off, going low over
the ground, it will show a conspicuous white rump.

That white rump has given the bird its name, wheatear which sim-
ply means ``white arse''. The word dates from a time when
``arse'' was still in polite use and the first half of the name
has nothing to do with ``wheat'' at all.

These wheatears are the first of hundreds of thousands that will
be making their way up through Europe between now and May. They
winter in Africa, south of the Sahara, and come north in a lei-
surely fashion, starting early and stopping frequently. They even
hold small territories on migration if they find a good stopover
for a few days. Some will go up to the far north of Europe, and
then either swing left for Greenland and Canada, or right for Si-
beria.

In this country, a certain number stay to nest on the downs, but
most go on to the rocky hillsides of Wales and the north. They
are birds that need large horizons you will never see them in a
garden, let alone a wood. They nest in rabbit burrows or in
cracks in dry stone walls, and their blacks, greys and whites
camouflage them well against such a background. At Dungeness,
several pairs usually nest in the shingle in old ammunition boxes
that have been specially planted there for them.

Few birds are so brisk and lively, and they are a constant
pleasure to watch. The male has a short warbling song, like a
rather creaky skylark, and often flies up from a rock and dances
in the air to deliver it. Wheatears will also fly up and hover
briefly just to look about them. Hunting for food, they repeated-
ly pause, then hop or run smartly forward. When they are alarmed,
they fly up on to a boulder and make sharp cries, or a note like
stones being knocked together. To dodge a hawk, they will dive
into a rabbit hole.

They lay five or six pale blue eggs. Birds that nest in dark
holes or hollows generally have white or blue eggs, because these
are easier for the parents to see, and eggs hidden in holes do
not need colour camouflage.

When migration begins again in the autumn, the slightly larger
Greenland wheatears become quite common for a while in Britain.
What is strange is that these birds, which went off in the direc-
tion of Canada, and those that went in the other direction to Si-
beria, both return to Europe, and only then turn south, back down
the route they went up by. It would make far more sense for the
first group to winter in Central America, and for the second
group to winter in Southern Asia.

But they have not made this adaptation, even though it means
that some of them have the longest migratory flight of any small
bird in the world. That is the route their ancestors discovered
in early evolutionary times and that is the route that they stick
to.

Derwent May

What's about: Birders Watch for sand martins over lakes and
reservoirs. Twitchers Black-faced bunting, first ever seen in
Britain, at Pennington Flash Country Park, Greater Manchester.
American widgeon at Christchurch harbour, Dorset. Details from
Birdline 0891 700222. Calls cost 36p a minute cheap rate, 45p at
all other times


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