Today, as I sit here looking out of the window watching the rain falling and the bushes and shrubs being tossed around in the chilly wind, I can’t help thinking of those summer migrants that have recently arrived on our shores. I imagine them hunched up with sodden feathers on a branch trying to shelter from the driven rain. They must already be tired and hungry after their often arduous flights and now they are facing the possibility of a gloomy English spring and summer. As water drips from the tips of their bills they must be thinking “why do we come here each year?” I suppose the answer must be, “because it works”. After all birds must have been following these seasonal flight paths since, well anyway, a long, long time and have managed in general, to raise a new generation to continue the process!
It is the birds such as swallows, martins and of course the swift that concern me the most as these feed almost exclusively on winged insects snatched in flight. On days like today it must be difficult to find a sheltered spot where perhaps a few brave insects have taken to the air in order to continual their own life cycles. Or, being effortless in the air, do they travel longer distances, searching for other areas of the countryside that may be having kinder weather? Perhaps in these periods of bad weather they instinctively know that hunting will be poor and simply stay ‘grounded’, resting up and conserving energy?
Whatever their strategy, I just hope that it copes with the current poor weather and, come the sunshine, they will once again be swooping through the blue skies in pursuit of those juicy, nourishing insects.
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