The surface temperature within the shade reads 47 levels Celsius and I’m about to enter a disguise to {photograph} birds. At occasions like these, I query my sanity. However I preserve coming again for extra. It was solely two weeks in the past that I used to be on a bleak moor on Shetland and now I want that I had the cool temperatures, the cloud and the rain that I had moaned about then. That is central Spain as an alternative, and I’m effectively into the worst time of yr for birds. For 3 months, usually extra, temperatures listed below are within the forties Celsius and there’s no rain. The bottom is parched, the crops are yellow and dry and plenty of birds are clearing out.
Already within the Strait of Gibraltar, to the south, the Black Kites Milvus migrans, are leaving south for Africa. These are the Iberian populations. They had been the primary to reach, in February and early March, in order to profit from the delicate temperatures and the meals provide which turns into out there with the rains. They time breeding in order that the chicks are fledged earlier than the peak of the dry season. Now, they head for south of the Sahara to catch the rains within the Sahel. Black Kites, and plenty of different Iberian birds, spend their lives monitoring the rains on both facet of the Sahara Desert. This makes the thought of spring-summer-autumn-winter redundant. As a substitute, a lot of central and southern Iberia experiences an intense scorching and dry season, from June to September, and a moist season. The onset of the rains is extremely variable. The place I dwell, in Gibraltar, it might begin a while in September however some years it might be after Christmas. The sample up to now few years has been for the rains to reach late.
What do birds do through the dry summer time? Many, just like the Black Kites, migrate. They merely depart the realm altogether. Different species are tied down. Poor flyers, corresponding to Crimson-legged Partridges Alectoris rufa, merely maintain out as greatest they’ll. Many will die throughout this worst time of the yr. Drying river beds and different ephemeral water our bodies are the one sources of reduction. That’s the reason I’m in a disguise, near a small water physique. It could be unbearably scorching and uncomfortable nevertheless it provides me a chance to {photograph} birds in these tough circumstances.
I usually learn claims of trans-Saharan migrants overwintering in Iberia. Most are errors by those that attempt to perceive Iberia within the basic spring-summer-autumn-winter method. The Victorian naturalist Abel Chapman, describing Doñana, known as it a bit piece of Africa in Europe. That might equally apply to a lot of the south of the peninsula. It has a moist and a dry season and the birds transfer accordingly. The White Storks Ciconia Ciconia, which are actually leaving with the kites, begin returning in October – it’s their “spring”. The Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica are again in January – they’re not wintering birds, they’re again for his or her “spring”. Nice Noticed Cuckoos Clamator glandarius begin getting back from October, having left in July and August. The return of birds to Iberia varies, relying on their meals necessities. For the Woodchat Shrikes Lanius senator it’s not till March and for the Curler Coracias garrulus it’s April. However all of them have one factor in widespread, come July it’s time to depart.
