Where the Wind Blows…

 

Honey Buzzards (Pernis apivorus) and other migrating birds find a way of dealing with gale force winds by flying higher thus avoiding the full force of ground based lower level easterlies, or by using muscle power. Of course powering these flight muscles uses up a lot valuable fat deposits to convert into the energy needed for crossing open water. Honey's don't like flight over the sea or large lakes one little bit. All Raptors, well apart from Ospreys, tend to avoid water where they can and concentrate on finding thermals to assist their journey by rising on the warm air currents and gliding on to the next one.When confronted with unavoidable short crossings like here on The Strait of Gibraltar, they deal with it in a very deliberate way, by just stretching out their long necks and just going for it! 

The levante winds pushes the birds down The Strait at a tremendous speed, particularly out in the centre where winds are gale force. You can tell the state of the sea by scanning your binoculars onto the sea and watch how high the 'white horses' lift! The state of the tide also plays a part in increased wind strength and when the tide is high, the ferocity increases. All this flight 'crabbing' down The Strait makes for extremely hard work for large migrating birds and constant flight compensation is requires to keep on course and make landfall otherwise birds could, and quite often do, get blown out into the Atlantic Ocean and drown, failing to make contact with land as the coastline widens and disappears altogether. 

Today I was down near the Bay of Cadiz and Honey Buzzards were fighting their way inland after making landfall at San Fernando some 100km (62miles) down the coast from their starting off  point at D'jebel Mousa (opposite Algeciras) in Morocco
The sight of so many Honey Buzzards, Booted Eagles, Short-toed Eagles, Black Kites and a sprinkling of Ospreys and Egyptian Vultures has been quite fantastic this last week, despite most birds being blown right down The Strait and coming over our garden!

We had a lovely visit from two Welsh birders, Mike and Neville, who stayed at Hoopoe cottage last week and they were amazed that despite the high winds so may birds were constantly coming through form Africa.

The levante or easterly winds have been blowing again right on cue during May. It sometimes affects humans and other animals health and there seems to be a local saying , or is it one of these urban myths, that if the Levante blows for more than ten days in the town of Tarifa, any person murdering their spouse during this period would in fact have an automatic and acceptable statutory legal defence upon their appearance in 'the dock'! I don't know if anyone has tried this legal dodge but like other urban myths that abound, they seem to sound quite dubious.  

The wind does have a depressive effect on a lot of people and medical studies have show that continuous warm winds can deplete the serotonin levels in the human body. This 'happiness neurotransmitter' is a regulator of mood or feeling of well-being,  appetite, sleep as well as muscle contraction. I just wonder what effect this has on migrant birds that are held up, unable to cross The Strait, their other hormones kicking-in, driving them forwards and northwards to their birth place and their breeding sites. Any long wait along the North African coastline with the strong winds bombarding their sense will have an effect, I'm sure.

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