Birders – especially those who, like me, live in western Britain – eagerly anticipate autumnal gales and storms, which arrive most years from the Atlantic Ocean to the west. These often bring migrating seabirds close inshore for a few hours, usually either side of high tide. Some unfortunate individuals may be driven inland, in what ornithologists call a “wreck”, after which they often perish.
In recent years, as a result of global climate breakdown, this storm season has extended well into the winter – as happened this January. Storms Isha and Jocelyn arrived in rapid succession, causing widespread damage, power cuts and deaths.
Seabirds tend to fare very differently during winter storms compared with autumn ones. By now, most are well out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where they are able to ride out the high winds without any risk of crashing into the land. This would explain the almost total lack of unusual seabird sightings so far this year.
There has been one notable weather-related sighting, though: of a mammal rather than a bird. A beluga whale – a small white cetacean from the Arctic – turned up on Shetland, after a run of strong northerly winds. This is just the fifth individual ever seen there, and the same species as an individual nicknamed Benny, which found a temporary home in the Thames estuary in December 2018.
