Has the species depicted above been recorded on Helgoland? What is it? Ol Mesera, Tanzania February 2012 Martin Goodey
Whatever the climate: "Birding is Best" by Private Helgoland
The brief excerpt below is a very slight modification of part of a recent review (which, living in sub-Saharan Africa I only discovered via Twitter) in the monthly magazine British Birds.
" The authors of Die Vogelwelt der Insel Helgoland (The Birds of the Island of Helgoland), by Jochen Dierschke, Volker Dierschke, Kathrin Hüppop, Ommo Hüppop and Klaas Felix Jachmann have managed to assemble an enormous wealth of data and provide the reader with unique analyses of trend data over 170 years.
Odd, and always admired, rarities range from the Egyptian Nightjar Caprimulgus aegyptius from the nineteenth century and the Pale Thrush Turdus pallidus in 1986 to the Grey-necked Bunting Emberiza buchanani as recently as 2009.
However, the real value of the book in the opinion of Christoph Zöckler is the trend data. Analyses of changes over the past 50 years provide trends for 66 species, of which 49 have decreased. Among them, not surprisingly, are Turtle Dove Streptopelia turtur, Wryneck Jynx torquilla and Tree Sparrow Passer montanus, but also Bluethroat Luscinia svecica.
Only ten increased, including Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus, Wood Pigeon Columba palumbus, Wren Troglodytes troglodytes and Common Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita.
(What about Goldfinch?)
Even longer-term trends, made possible by using the accounts from Gätke as well as Rudolf Drost in the early twentieth century, reveal the sheer numbers of mass migration and falls of literally thousands of birds, such as an estimated 2,000 Ring Ouzels Turdus torquatus in one October night in 1934, or thousands of Common Redstarts Phoenicurus phoenicurus on spring days with a southeasterly wind. There were 1,500 Common Redstarts in May 1940, but such numbers have not been observed since, pointing to overall declines of this once-common species.
More intriguing are the fluctuations in numbers of the Shore Lark Eremophila alpestris over the past 170 years. Hardly known from before 1847, the species increased rapidly to thousands in autumn migration at the end of nineteenth century, declining in the early twentieth century but with hundreds again by the mid 1900s. After 1960 the species declined, increased again in the 1990s and has declined since 1999.
[Are these latter fluctuations climate-change related?]
The book reveals many more intriguing analyses of several species, drawing parallels with observations of birds across the British Isles. "
