An interesting feature of the autumn migration is the occurrence of
a flight of the Blue-throated Warbler, _Cyanecula suecica_; twelve
altogether were obtained, all being birds of the year, and nine of
these on the coast of Norfolk, besides about twenty others seen by
competent observers.
Very few Goldcrests, compared with the enormous flights of the
previous autumn, have crossed, and the same scarcity is observable in
the Heligoland return. Curiously enough, the Hedgesparrow, _Accentor
modularis_, which migrated in such immense numbers in the same autumn,
has been almost entirely absent. About half a dozen are recorded at
Heligoland, none on the East Coast of England.
The intermittent migration of some birds, as the Jay, Shore Lark,
Goldcrest, Hedgesparrow, Siskin, and Mealy Redpole, indicated by
their extraordinary abundance in some years, and partial or entire
absence in others, is perhaps suggestive of local causes influencing
and regulating their movements, such as a succession of favourable
breeding seasons, scarcity or failure of food, sudden meteorological
changes; these acting separately or in combination, would be sufficient
to compel the migration of large bodies of birds from centres or
localities, where, under normal conditions, they would either have
remained or some part only migrated. In this manner whole districts
may become denuded for a time of their feathered inhabitants, and the
balance become again rectified by a return movement in the spring, or
from the surplus supply bred in other districts.
Of the enormous immigration which crosses our east coast in the autumn,
either to winter in these islands or passing across them, a small
proportion only appear to return by the same route. Spring returns
from lighthouses and light-vessels show birds then move on the same
lines as were followed in the autumn, but in the reverse direction. Yet
these return travellers do not represent anything like a tithe of the
immigrants which, week by week and month after month in the autumn,
pour in one great tide on to the coast.
What is called the "first flight" of the Woodcock arrived on the
Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Norfolk coasts on the night of Oct. 21st.
The "great flight" or rush, which covered the whole of the east coast
from the Farn Islands to Yarmouth, was on the nights of the 28th and
29th. These two periods correlate with the great flights of Woodcocks
over Heligoland.
We are again indebted to Professor Ch. F. Lütken, of Copenhagen, for
a list of the birds killed or taken alive against the lantern of the
Stevns lighthouse, at the entrance of the Oresund, in Zealand. The list
is specially interesting, as it names so many of the Heligoland birds.
The occurrence of Locustella fluviatilis on Sept. 5th is the first
recorded example for Denmark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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