Life on the move: Revealing the awe-inspiring journeys of three migratory birds

It’s awe-inspiring, it’s international, and it’s taking place as you read these very words. We are of course talking about the epic global phenomenon that is bird migration. 

We dive into the fascinating lives of our long-distance travellers and find out where three special species are on their journeys right now. We will also be exploring how we are working to protect and restore key habitats for these birds in the UK and elsewhere on their migration routes. 

Gaze out across our coasts and estuaries at this time of year and you’ve got a good chance of spotting one of our most elegant wading birds – the Redshank. Some of the individuals you see will be resident in the UK year-round, but the majority will have recently arrived to spend the winter with us after finishing their breeding season in Iceland. To support these beautiful birds along their migration routes, the RSPB has been working with local partners in Iceland to protect and restore habitat for Redshanks and other migratory wading birds in the country’s precious lowland wetlands. 

Now that autumn has arrived, these Redshanks have flown south-east over the north Atlantic in pursuit not only of a more comfortable climate but also of some world-class mud. After feeding on insects and worms during the summer, Redshanks widen their diets during autumn and winter to include the molluscs, worms and crustaceans found in the nutrient-rich mudflats of the UK’s coasts and estuaries.

It is these mudflats, together with saltmarsh and other key wetland habitats, that make our coasts internationally important for migratory wading birds like Redshanks, both as stop-over sites during their migrations and as a final destination for winter. In fact, the network of wetland sites along England’s east coast, between the estuaries of the Humber and the Thames, is so valuable for both wildlife and people that it is in the process of being nominated as a new UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site. Here, the RSPB is working to manage and protect key coastal sites, like Minsmere, Titchwell and Frampton Marsh nature reserves, and the wonderful array of birds which visit them.

While Redshanks are settling into their winter buffet, many of the small perching birds (or ‘passerines’) which breed in the UK during our summer are approaching the end of their own epic journeys. In the wooded savannahs and scrublands of northern Ghana, one of these intrepid travellers is on the home straight.

The Garden Warbler, a bird weighing only around 20 grams, is coming to the end of a journey that has seen them fly over western Europe, before crossing the largest desert on Earth – the Sahara – followed by the semi-arid Sahel region and into their wintering grounds in West Africa. When crossing the Sahara, they fly at night and rest during the heat of the day in whatever suitable shade they can find.

Bird ringing has shown that Garden Warblers that breed in the UK spend the winter in Ghana and other West African countries. Here the birds will busily refuel to restore the crucial energy reserves they have lost during their autumn migration. Studies on other species in the warbler family have shown that these birds not only burn fat to fuel their long-distance journeys but the mass of their flight muscles themselves can also be reduced by as much as 20% during migratory flights. So having good quality, food-rich habitat on their wintering grounds is essential so that they can rebuild those reserves.

In northern Ghana, the RSPB has begun an exciting project alongside Ghana Wildlife Society to help restore key habitat for migratory passerines, including Garden Warblers. Here we are working closely with local communities to ensure that these birds, which both our countries share, continue to have access to the food and space they need during winter before returning to Europe in the spring.

One of our best-loved migratory birds, known for its daredevil aerial acrobatics above our towns and villages, is the Swift. Having left the UK in July and August, most of these long-distance travellers will now be busy hunting for insects over the tropical forests of central Africa with a particular hotspot being the southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

While these birds are busy swooping above rainforest canopies, back in the UK autumn is a great time for you to get involved in their protection by putting up a Swift nestbox. You can find information on how to put up your very own box here and you can also contribute your sightings to the Swift Mapper platform to help us identify nest sites that need protection.

We are not only helping to support Swifts in the UK but elsewhere on their migration too. The forests of West Africa are a key refuelling area for Swifts and other migratory birds and in Sierra Leone and Liberia we are working alongside local communities and our partners to protect these precious forests for the benefit of wildlife, climate and people.

The scale of the journeys that our migratory species make can be hard for us to imagine. You can see from the video below that one Swift we tracked undertook an incredible 15,000-mile round-trip, passing over 26 countries, before returning to the UK once more to breed.

Awe-inspiring journeys like these are happening all over the globe at this time of year and, thanks to your support, we can continue to protect the remarkable birds that are making them.

Our work to protect and restore key sites along the East Atlantic Flyway migration route has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ecological Restoration Fund.

The Ecological Restoration Fund supports work that protects biodiverse hotspots, rejuvenates degraded landscapes and promotes local environmental activism. They are committed to re-establishing nature’s essential interconnections while fostering cultural, social and economic opportunities for the communities inhabiting those landscapes.