Migration Sensation

Autumn migration is one of the UK’s most impressive natural events and has a very different feel to the great, noisy chorus and urgency of spring.

As our own summer visitors gradually disappear, birds that spent the summer in more northerly countries start to pass through on their way south, working their way towards their wintering grounds, often stopping for days to refuel for the rest of their journey. Huge numbers of flycatchers, chats and warblers are leaving our coasts for long journey’s south to Africa. Most swallows have now left and won’t return until April, though you may see a few house martins flying high in groups over towns and villages, gathering too for their impending journey.

Look out for the first impressive skeins, characteristic V-formations of pink footed geese flying south across East Yorkshire at dawn and dusk as they make their way down the UK. Most head for Norfolk where they spend the winter arriving from Norway, Iceland and Greenland – and numbers seem to be increasing.

Soon the first winter thrushes will arrive including redwing and fieldfare which gorge on our berries and stay for our milder winter, away from the true arctic blasts in Scandinavia, Iceland and Russia where most return to breed in the spring.

Late summer into autumn is also a great time for seabird watching - wrap up warm, find a comfortable spot on a headland and scan for migrating seabirds. Thousands of auks, kittiwakes and gannets leave their colonies and head out into the Bay of Biscay and the North Atlantic for the winter – an incredible sight to behold.

While you’re on the coast, keep an eye on the waves. Over recent years there have been incredible sightings of cetaceans – whales, dolphins and porpoises - delighting sea-watchers on Yorkshire’s coast in late summer. Minke whales, pilot whales and bottle nose dolphins have been seen searching for feeding grounds. If you want to get more involved in spotting these amazing creatures, to help us better understand them, find out more at Sea Watch Regular Observer.