Ingham’s World Friday 9th October-Hello, woodcock pilot!

If you go out on an autumn night you can witness one of nature’s greatest spectacles- migration.  There’s all sorts of birds out there: thrushes, geese, starlings, waders and many more are pouring from as far away places as Russia and Greenland.  Before you go to bed, listen out for the high pitched calls of redwings, thrushes a bit like song thrushes.  There is also pink-footed geese flocking in, with a massive 30,ooo in wildfowl and wetland trusts.  But more impressive is the feet of Britain’s smallest birds, goldcrests, which travel an astounding 500 miles.  For a bird only 9cm long, it is quite a way to travel.  The birds come in from Scandanavia if they haven’t stayed in Britain, and travel alongside lots of other migrants.  One of these include the woodcock, which have the same migration route as the goldcrests.  People used to think it impossible for a bird the same weight as a 10 pence piece could travel such a long feet, so they thought that the tiny birds must’ve hitched a ride on the back of woodcocks, hence the name “woodcock pilot”!

The scarfaces of the dolphin world flocked to the waters the waters of North Wales in record breaking numbers last weekend.  Dr Peter Evans counted at least 50 of them!