…..AND THE AWARD FOR THE LONGEST MIGRATION ANNUALLY UNDERTAKEN BY A
LAND BIRD GOES TO……..


Dear All,
Europeans when learning about birds find references to Northern
Wheatears as having the most remarkable and longest migration of any
passerine in the world, and there is no denying that the distances
they travel are extraordinary. The race that breeds in Greenland and
Eastern Canada for example flies east from that region and annually
crosses the open Atlantic Ocean to make first landfall in Ireland,
France or Spain, then filters down to sub-saharan West Africa. Can
there be anything that takes on a comparable distance?

I was fairly sure that there was a bird passing through our paddock on
its migration that was a contender or even potential winner and this
was the humble ten grams Willow Warbler. Yet nothing remarkable had
ever been written to say that this bird is moving phenomenal distances
each year in both directions. As nice a bird as the Northern Wheatear
is, I felt that as the worlds champion passerine long-distance migrant
it had for all this time been a usurper and the accolade should have
always been bestowed on the eastern Willow Warbler Phylloscopus
trochilus yakutensis.

For the Swara issue July-September in 2015, this concept inspired me
to write the following as part of my regular feature “Paddock
Diaries.”

“In October and November, the greenish backed race acredula of the
widespread palearctic Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus), passes
through in fairly good numbers. They scour the acacias for insects,
but are also partial to the nectar of Grevillea robusta flowers. Most
of these move on to other wintering areas, but a few become faithful
and stay for the duration, although I suspect that there is still a
massive interchange amongst individuals in the area. Towards the end
of November and into December, a more robust, pallid grey-backed and
white bellied warbler appears and joins the acredula, but these are
still Willow Warblers from much, much further away, and are of the
eastern race yakutensis. This form breeds as far East as the Kolymar
mountains of Siberia, well to the East of all of China and Japan,
migrating north of the Himalayas they head Southwest, probably over
Afghanistan, cross the Middle East and then head southwards into East
Africa. Now they were enjoying our local insects and nectar. It was
whilst watching the birds, and marvelling on how far they had come,
that I wondered: “Is this the passerine with the longest migration on
the planet?’.
This is an accolade traditionally showered on the Northern Wheatear, a
species that breeds across the entire northern latitudes from eastern
Canada, Greenland, Iceland, all of Europe, Asia and Alaska. All
Northern Wheatears have a final destination on the African continent.
It is quite mind boggling that birds raised in eastern Canada, rather
than finding
a wintering area on the American continents, take this punishing
journey to places like the Gambia and westwards into the sub-Sahel,
whilst Alaskan birds also ignore the American continents and anything
to do with Asia to arrive, for instance, on the lower slopes of Mt
Kenya. But what about yakutensis Willow Warblers, about half the size
of the Northern Wheatears? When they reach Kenya, they still continue
South, many reaching the tip of Africa.”

In 2018, Sokolovskis, K, Bianco, G, Willemoes, M, Solovyeva, D,
Bensch, S, & Åkesson, S., combined to produce a paper based on the
results from an experiment from 2016/7 when they placed minute
geolocators on several adult male Willow Warblers of the eastern race
yakutensis that were trapped on their breeding ground in far northeast
Siberia, the farthest eastern point in all the Palearctic, and also
farther north than any point on the land mass of Europe.

The results of this most interesting study are attached, as it only
deals with the results from three individuals it does not take into
account that yakutensis wintering ground extends well down into South
Africa.

Enjoy the read
Brian