Nightingales in November (38 page)

With begging practised to a fine art, the Cuckoo chick by late June will be driving its foster parents on to keep it fed, close to the nest from which it fledged, as it works steadily towards independence. The Cuckoo's biological father, however, whose sole contribution to parenthood was impregnating the youngster's biological mother, will by now have either left Britain, or at least be on the verge of departure. Obviously the window in which the females are able to target hosts' nests is quite a small one, and so by late June, as the females target the last of any late clutches, the redundant males will have little qualm in leaving the females and chicks to their own devices.

Certainly Chris the Cuckoo, satellite tracked by the BTO from when he was initially tagged as a one-year-old bird in 2011 until his untimely death in the summer of 2015, was recorded as leaving for the continent anywhere between 17 June and 7 July. This suggests that most male Cuckoos rarely spend more than seven weeks – or a mere 14% of their
year – in Britain, before then crossing the English Channel for all points south. From the data collected from Chris and the other tracked Cuckoos, it seems that upon leaving Britain they are in no hurry to move south too rapidly and often appear quite happy to feed up in north-west Europe for at least a week before turning towards the Mediterranean. June 2012, for example, was a very eventful time in Chris's life, as he bucked the trend of other years by taking in a European tour which started in Belgium, before then visiting Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in quick succession, only to end the month back in north Belgium, near the docks at Antwerp! Despite no females having yet been tracked, as their marginally lighter weight still prevents the current version of satellite transmitters from being attached, there is currently no reason to suggest that the females will do anything radically different to the males when they too leave a short while later.

Safely ensconced underground, once the Puffin chick reaches around a week old, it should be able to maintain its body temperature well enough so that it can be left unsupervised while both parents are out fishing. The adults never bring food in at night, and there is also a very pronounced rhythm to when fish are delivered, with a high frequency of feeds in the morning, a tailing off during the middle of the day and a resurgence again in the evening. These pronounced peaks and troughs may well be due to the behaviour of the fish that are being exploited by the Puffins, with Sandeels more actively feeding in the water column in the morning and fish like Sprats rising closer to the surface at dusk. Once the morning's fishing gets under way, the traffic of birds flying to and fro can be very clearly seen at large puffinries, with the adults frequently returning like geese in a ‘V' formation to deliver sustenance to their
waiting chicks. Once the food has been dropped off, the parent will often not fly back out to sea immediately, but use this brief period of respite to glean from other Puffins valuable information, not just about the directions leading to the best fishing areas, but also the type and quantity of food being brought in.

The frequency of feeds during the course of the day will depend on how far the parents are foraging out to sea and the availability of food, but generally most chicks will receive anywhere between three and eleven feeds in a day, with four to six mealtimes being most common. When younger, the Puffling would have been carefully fed beak to beak by its parents, but as it develops, the parents may confine visits to simply dumping the catch on the floor of the burrow and leaving the youngster to waddle down in order to feed itself. The chicks are able to put away a surprisingly large amount of food, and seem to have no problem in polishing off every last morsel brought in by their parents. When not eating or sleeping, the growing Puffling will also become much more mobile underground and spend an increasing amount of time preening, scratching and playing with any nesting material close by. The period when the young hatch also seems to coincide with a small window of time when a few of the two- and three-year-olds from previous breeding seasons pay the colony a visit. Too young to breed and presumably dropping in just to conduct a reconnaissance, these adolescents with their dusky faces and thin bills will often stand out like sore thumbs amongst the throng of adults in all their breeding finery.

As the teenage Puffins familiarise themselves with a thriving puffinry, finally towards the end of the month the female Waxwings breeding up in the taiga forests of northern Scandinavia and Russia should see the first chicks chipping
out of their eggs after around a fortnight's incubation. The young, like many perching birds, hatch naked and blind, and so will initially be totally dependent on their parents for their every need. Due to the remote locations where Waxwings breed, relatively few data have been collected on their breeding habits, but a study in southern Norway revealed that the young were still brooded by the female for long periods even at five days old. While the female broods the chicks, the male's responsibility will be to forage for food. Mostly insect food is considered to be brought in during the first few days and the regurgitated bolus of insects will either be passed to his mate to feed the chicks, or fed directly to each expectant red gape in turn.

Even further north on the Russian Arctic tundra, those Bewick's Swans which both laid claim to a territory and built a nest should by now be well into their 30-day incubation period. Despite the vast majority of swans making the journey all the way back to the breeding grounds, for one reason or another a large proportion may have already made the decision not to breed. Without the stresses and strains of incubating and rearing cygnets, these non-breeding birds will have plenty of time to feed in the perpetual daylight experienced during the summer solstice north of the Arctic Circle. When not feeding or sleeping, the young swans will also probably be making use of any spare time to practise the art of courtship in the hope of having more luck the following year.

July

Marginally shading August for the mantle of ‘warmest month', the colour purple often holds sway across town and country in July as flowers like Buddleia, Heather and Knapweed all bloom profusely to coincide with the super-abundance of insects emerging in the long, warm days of Britain in mid-summer. While a whole plethora of butterflies and dragonflies take to the wing to make the most of their short lives, many birds, however, will be keeping a far lower profile. With courtship and territorial songs suddenly replaced by subdued contact calls and the sound of incessant begging from young still in the nest, for the avian fraternity July is primarily a time for feeding, fledging and moulting.

Early July

Finally, after just over a month of incessant incubation in the perpetual daylight of the Arctic tundra, those breeding Bewick's Swans that managed to keep a whole host of marauding predators away from their clutch should be finally welcoming their newly hatched chicks into the world. It seems the hatching process can be a protracted one, with the chicks emerging over a period lasting anywhere between one and three days. From research carried out on the breeding grounds it seems that around 90% of the eggs will hatch, while the other 10% were either infertile or the embryo died during development. Throughout this key period both parents will be close at hand to ensure any unwelcome visitors are kept at bay and once dried off, the downy young will be fully sighted and able to feed themselves within hours of emerging into the maritime tundra.

Also able to rear just a single brood during the brief northern Scandinavian summer, most Waxwings should by now be busily feeding their young at the beginning of what is statistically the warmest month of the year in the taiga forests. Needing to brood the grey-brown chicks much less from around day six means the female will suddenly become freed up to help share the chore of finding enough food during what will be the youngsters' phase of quickest growth and most rapid development. After being fed initially on protein-rich insects such as mosquitoes and midges, the parents will then subsequently feed their noisy young on a combination of invertebrates and locally foraged fruit. Certainly in the Swedish taiga forests the young Waxwings will probably be fed a combination of Crowberry, Bilberry,
Cowberry and Bearberry. Having flowered in May and June, most of these plants should be forming their clusters of fresh berries by the time the Waxwing chicks are at their most ravenous. Further east in the Russian Federation, the later arrival of spring might just mean the nestlings have to settle with any berries still remaining from the previous year's stock, in addition to a healthy supply of flies, beetles, flying ants, caddisflies and other insects.