At the far north-western edge of the range in Belgium, similar observations
concerning Red-backed Shrike are reported.
See this link, comparing the records for the species in the national observation system:
Wouter Fayets
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Eastern France/Switzerland:
Here in France we’ve also been discussing likely causes of the unusually late arrival of Red-backed Shrikes – in my area, they’ve just started arriving in the last few days, which is about 2 to 3 weeks late.
A fairly logical explanation would be the weather conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean this spring, which experienced frequent strong northern winds, as well as higher than usual rainfall. Especially during the first 2 weeks of May, Turkey/Crete was affected by this weather. In contrast, Western Europe has had hardly any rain and mostly southern winds. The preceding info was mostly translated from data provided by F. Legendre and C. Calas (
www.meteoc.fr).
This would explain why RBS arrived late, but not other species that winter predominantly in West Africa such as Melodious Warbler.
Marsh Warbler seems to be arriving pretty much as usual – maybe because a lot winter even further East, or because the spell of bad weather is over now?
So for now I’m still hopeful that it’s just a late arrival rather than some unexpected population crash; my main worry though is that due to their late arrival their young will fledge after the peak time for the various medium-sized insects, and that mortality will thus be higher than usual. This morning, I had about 5 pairs of RBS on a good site near my home in Eastern France, which is similar to previous years. Quite a relief to finally see them again!
Bram Piot
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Hungary:
Interestingly, several birders and bird conservationists asked the same
question in the Hungarian and Transylvanian breeding range of Red-backed
Shrike because it has arrived at least two weeks later than usual from wintering
areas and is apparently in low numbers.
R-bS is a common breeder in NE Hungary and it was strange to see none until
mid-May.
András Kovács
First arrivals in Hungary (Lake Balaton-area) from random years:
83 máj 7
85 ápr. 29 male, máj 5 female
86 ápr 27 male, máj 3 female
87 ápr 30 male, máj 5 female
88 ápr 29
89 ápr 18 male, earliest data ever
90 ápr 29 male, máj 2 female
2011 május 18 male, május 20 female
Lajos Nemeth-Boka
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Bulgaria:
I saw my first red-backed shrike in north east Bulgaria on May 12th. They are now here in very big numbers. One day there were none but within three days everywhere you look you see one.
Through our facebook group, I am told the situation was similar in other parts of Bulgaria. I am also told they arrived about 7 days late this year. We have had the coldest April for a generation (in complete contrast to western Europe) and anecdotally many migrants passing up through eastern Europe are "behind schedule"
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Romania:
I collected a few reports on Red-backed Shrike in Romania. Accordingly the species is late
by 2 to 3 weeks and started to build up just in the last few days. So, in the
weekend most observers noted them as 'common' in S and SE Romania, however I felt
that not all the breeding population has arrived yet in Central Transylvania.
Attila Sandor
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Lesvos:
We had a very weird holiday season in Lesvos this year with many species being late (shrikes and warblers). NO Olive-tree by the time we left, Rollers only just arriving and Bee-eaters the week we arrived. Loads of Barred Warblers this year (we saw only one!). The winter had been very wet, so everything was very green and the rivers higher than last year, and so there we no reported Great Snipe.
Steve Chalmers
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Cyprus:
There has been curiosity in Cyprus about the almost total lack of Red-backed
Shrikes this spring. Normally passage commences in mid-April, with daily
records to mid-May. This year there were only 2 birds reported in April,
both on the 22nd, with virtually no more until around 17th May when we
experienced a trickle of birds for a few days. But passage has now stopped,
with little sign of any more passing. Migration of other passerines has also
finished in Cyprus.
The consensus is that it was a generally poor spring for
birders with much fewer migrants than usual.
I wonder what is going on?
Food availability, weather - problems in Africa?
Colin Richardson
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Israel:
in Israel this year there is a very big drop in numbers of birds passing during Spring comparing to last years.
Nevertheless many of the species seems to have had a lag of 2-3 weeks from their regular appearance dates.
Thrush Nightingales which are regularly seen from mid April and on around Eilat, were arriving this year only around the second week of May and last week they were one of the most abundant species after Blackcaps.
I will be happy to hear more about the weather conditions you described regarding the 'Greater Horn' as this may very well be one of the key issues.
Itai Shanni
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UAE:
Red-backed Shrikes are very much an early-May bird in the UAE, rarely appearing in any numbers in April.
In contrast, a trip to Ethiopia in April 2009 revealed an apparently large passage of this species on 12-15 April (I don't have the exact date in front of me).
Having only visited Ethiopia once, I cannot say whether this was early or not, though I can say that there had been unusually heavy 'small rains' and subsequent greening of the grasslands / Acacia woodland.
Tommy Pedersen (UAE recorder) and/or Oscar Campbell may have further comment on this matter.
Nick Moran
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Somaliland:
We're seeing well-fed 'boat loads' of Thrush Nightingales as well as the Common headed your way as I write this. There are excellent numbers of these nightingales as well as migrant shrikes (Red-backed, Lesser Grey, and Southern Grey) and even common [Red]starts on a move your way, in a long front all the way to 45E.
Abdi A. Jama
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Sahel etc.
First of all, I have no idea what the breeding season was like in Sweden last year, nor do I know what may have happened to Swedish passerines on their way between Sweden and Africa, or between Africa and Sweden,
That being said, from James's and Abdi's responses one could hypothesise that migratory passerines, like migratory waterbirds, may show not only site fidelity but also opportunism: don't migrate further south than you have to to survive and to fuel up for the return trip. Sweden's Thrush Nightingales and Red-backed Shrikes may be low in numbers this year, and/or late, as mentioned by Abdi, because of drought conditions in northern East Africa during the past six months, as described by James. The Great Snipe discussed yesterday may be in Western Europe in greater number this year because of high rainfall in the West African Sahel last year (June-Sep/Oct). Perhaps Sweden's Whitethroats and Redstarts winter in West Africa rather than East Africa, hence their high numbers this year. Recoveries in Niger in West Africa, of birds ringed in Sweden, do include 2 Sedge Warblers and 2 Willow Warblers, in addition to 5 Ospreys, 2 Wood Sandpiper and 2 Caspian Terns. When are the Swedes coming to Niger to study and ring migratory passerines :-) ?
Related to poor conditions in the Sahel, the attached contribution by David Kusserow and myself may be of interest. In brief, in September, just at the end of the rainy season, when the passrines come down from Europe, the Sahel is a green shore to the Sahara. In April, when they move back north, at the end of the dry season, the Sahel is an extension of the Sahara, EVERY year. In April, David, who lives in Niger not far from Lake Chad, picks up Redstarts, White-throats etc. that are heat struck before they even start to cross the Sahara. Some pictures of heat struck birds have just been put on the blingual (English and French) Niger Bird DataBase site,
www.bromus.net/nibdab (click on Photos and sort on order of entry).
Joost Brouwer
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Uganda:
A few bits of information which are probably not much use to your study, being the wrong side of the Rift Valley.
Had an entertaining few days in Kidepo Valley Nat Park 25-27 April this year and saw good numbers of Shrikes, approx 120 Lesser Grey, 60+ Red-backed and 50+ Isabelline.
Also seen at least ten Red-backed and 8 Isabelline in Kampala last autumn and this spring. These are far and away more than seen in my previous year here in Uganda.
Whether a shift in migration patterns I cannot tell.
With reference to Marsh Warblers I have trapped 2 at Ggaba, Kampala this winter which I think are the third or forth records of this species in Uganda.
Have not seen Thrush Nightingale in Uganda but did see my first Nightingale this spring.
Roger Skeen
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Tanzania:
1)
I attach our latest atlas map for Tanzania. This gives an accurate feel for the wintering quarters here, there are very few knowledge gaps in terms of range limits. Unfortunately we do not have sufficient day dated records to compare year on year departures.
Our over-wintering garden bird at 7.731 South was last heard on 2nd April. I'm asking our birding group for any other dates or significant observations this past season. Rains, as ever, have been patchy in both timing and distribution. Locally here they have been heavier that "normal" but some farm dams within 20km are lower than they should be.
With only 166 ringing records and no recoveries I've no clue where our birds breed but there is surely better data from the Ngulia ringing group and many of these will be of birds that over-winter in Tanzania.
Neil Baker
2) Arusha:
On the Sprossers and Nightingales, I'm somewhat hesitant to comment since I've hardly been home since November - just short periods.
However, it certainly seems as if we had very few Sprossers for a much shorter time than normal. They are generally abundant and vociferous here for the duration. While we do sometimes have nightingales around they are never as numerous as sprossers. At the end of April/into May (I was in S. A. much of April) all I saw was Nightingale but not many. Interesting and I would guess as surmised on the blog that variable weather patterns have a lot to do with this.
Cheers,
Daudi Peterson
3) JW
I suspect that the highly erratic, both spatially (they were especially localised and capricious last season) and also in terms of volume, vuli-rains which caused punishing droughts in many areas across the 'Greater Horn' [i.e. from Red Sea coastline in NE Africa down to southern Tanzania at least] during October- December may be at least partly responsible for the late arrival of Thrush Nightingales.
Light-aircraft pilots here in Arusha remarked that the the ITCZ rolled way south very quickly in November/December!
I felt that I was encountering fewer TNs than previously in northern Tanzania during the late autumn passage/boreal winter.
In wetter years before they've been quite common through the Arusha area, off-passage for many days, e.g. we get up to four daily in our 'garden' during late November-December; and in an El Niño 1-2 birds probably 'winter'.
This past season I think they moved through much more quickly southbound, and interestingly were soon replaced by the 'pale ones' i.e. hafizi [Rufous] Nightingales, which in marked contrast, remained in 'good numbers' until late in March. And of course L.l. likes to forage and 'winter' in markedly damper situations than does L. (m.) hafizi.
Also what about Marsh Warbler which, so far as I am aware, has been very scarce this April-May in eastern Tanzania?
The first Red-backed Shrikes I saw this season were with a Sunbird tour group at Speke Bay on 14 March. This is well to the west of the Rift Valley and these birds were present in drought conditions, almost unprecedented there. The Tanzanian shores of the Lake Victoria basin e.g including the western corridor of the Serengeti NP and Speke Bay were exceptionally dry up until March 20/21, when they received 65 mm in one night at SB Lodge.
It seems likely it was not until mid-April that the first real wave of shrikes came through the coastal strip at Tanga area (just south of Kenya border) during plentiful rainfall there.
These long-heavy rains seem to have arrived, and be lingering, later this season and so maybe many Palearctic migrants have likewise been forced, fat-wise, to delay their departure.
In April I travelled on a rapid transect across the entire shrike route (flight path).
Firstly from Arusha west to Lake Victoria back to Arusha and then from Arusha to Ushongo, Pangani and back - Pangani is on the East African coast just south of the Kenya/Tz border.
We went down to the coast on April 17 along the main NBI-Dar road passing Mount Meru, Kilimanjaro, Same, Segera and Muheza (East Usambaras).
There were no migrant shrikes visible on the way east to the coast even though [unusually] we had seen many, our first ones, at Ndutu (>30) way out in the steppes at the western Ngorongoro CAA/Serengeti NP boundary on April 15/16. The complete absence of RBS along the main highway on April 17 was a remarkable and disturbing fact, as 'usually' there are scores and scores along this roadside by mid-April.
Early in the next week, at the Indian Ocean coastline, we had three significant rain storms, especially on 18/19, during which there were falls of both shrikes and also Spotted Flycatchers
We returned west on the same route during April 18/19/20 via a stop-over near Nyumba ya Mungu reservoir o/n on 19th.
On the slower return trip westwards, inland through good shrike habitat (April 25-28), we saw a small number of female Red-backed Shrikes but, by now, very few males.
Red-backed Shrikes, especially males who presumably usually come through first, appeared to be in lower numbers and definitely peaked over a week late.
They were much very concentrated in those areas where there had been recent heavy yet isolated showers, these were chiefly west and east of their normal flyway. Especially, and perhaps somewhat unusually, west of the Rift at Ndutu, and east right along the coast south of Pangani.
There were very few birds in much of the central 200km wide part of their 'normal flyway route' on April 17.
This northbound route is through the savannas of eastern Tz between Kilimanjaro and the coastal strip i.e. just south of Amboseli and the two Tsavo parks in Kenya.
James Wolstencroft
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RSA:
At Nylsvley Nature Reserve in northern South Africa, Red-backed Shrike is a common summer visitor to this semi-arid savanna.
Annual bird counts are done across the 4000 ha reserve each year (2000-2011 so far) in the last week of January (18 standard transects in acacia and broad-leafed woodland, each team walking from 06h00 for 2 hours counting all birds encountered). The shrike is usually one of the top 20 species counted, but numbers fluctuate massively from season to season (between 15-76 birds/a); in the last 4 years numbers counted have been below-average. For the 12 years of data, the Red-backed Shrike numbers counted were, in chronological order: 42, 53, 17, 61, 76, 33, 26, 35, 30, 21, 15, 31.
Because it is a conspicuous bird these ups and down are probably a real reflection of the relative commonness of the bird over the years.
Warwick Tarboton
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