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One in a non-Jay place at Garthorpe today, and I’ve noticed a few others wandering about in this area: flying south along the Alkborough-Burton cliff, and two flying west high over fields near Adlingfleet (Yorks) on 22nd September.
A summary of the big 2012 movement will be in the soon-to-emerge Lincolnshire Bird Report, comparing it to that in 1983. Both of those movements began in a small way around the turn of Sept/Oct with larger numbers from 7th-8th October, so it’s worth watching what develops this year.
Where do these Jays come from? There’s a common assumption that they are continental but precious little evidence for it. BTO’s Migration Atlas suggests the paucity of foreign ringing recoveries may be because so few are ringed in northern areas where they are most eruptive. But you might think that some would have been ringed en route further south in southern Scandinavia or the low countries. Yet there is only one recovery in either direction, and that involved a bird ringed at Dungeness (scarcely in Britain anyway!) in October and found dead in the Netherlands the following June. In the 1983 movement, there were hundreds roaming the Cornish cliffs but not one reached the Scilly Isles, suggesting they were not that keen to cross water – odd for birds supposed to have crossed the North Sea. I’m not saying that none comes from the continent, but think it’s more likely most are British.
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