It’s a jolly holiday with Wing Tips – here are five sublime sights to brighten your July.
Amazing accuracy. Awesome agility. Astonishing acceleration. Forget the football, if you want to see some world-class talent flying on the wing this July, we’ve got the spectator sport for you. Set a course for the coast and immerse yourself in the sensational sights, sounds and smells of a stunning seabird city.
Prefer fresh water to salty seas? Quench your thirst for action at your local fast-flowing stream, the ideal arena for the UK’s greatest diver outside of football. If you’re a woodland wanderer, a top tactic this month is to take pause and pick out a perch, as an elegant catcher-on-the-fly is waiting to be spotted.
So, forget extra time. In July, our birds are working overtime; here are five bird-class spectacles to see this month.
Think you’ve experienced city living? Think again. In the summer, our coasts play host to a multi-sensory marvel as thousands of seabirds including Kittiwakes, Guillemots, Razorbills and Fulmars gather to raise their young on our cliffs and crags.
These birds spend most of the year out at sea before returning to battle it out for prime nesting real estate on our sheer weather-worn shores. By July, city life is in full swing, and hardworking adult birds are taking to the wing to provide fishy food for their ever-growing chicks.
As you take in the sights, sounds and smells of this summer sensation, keep an eye out for random acts of piracy too. Many of these towering cityscapes are crowned by burrow-nesting Puffins rushing back with beaks full of sandeels for their adorable Pufflings. It’s a tantalising prospect for nosy neighbours seeking to steal an easy meal.
On coastal cliff faces across the UK.
Visit an RSPB coastal reserve, such as RSPB Bempton Cliffs or Rathlin Island, between or an immersive seabird city experience.
Medium – depending on your location, some travelling might be needed, but once you’re there, you can’t miss it!
Step aside, karate kids, there’s a new fly catcher in town! Take a stroll through a woodland or mature garden this July, and you could be treated to a show of incredible aeronautical accuracy.
This month provides a great chance to spot a Spotted Flycatcher snatching airborne insects straight out of the air. The best place to find these flying martial artists is on a high woodland perch. There, they can be seen surveying the air space for unsuspecting invertebrates before locking on and darting like a homing missile to catch them cleanly.
Despite their mastery of this ‘aerial hawking’ technique, Spotted Flycatcher numbers declined by 88% between 1970 and 2018. However, the remaining population of these agile birds is widespread across the UK. Find your nearest woodland RSPB nature reserve to see if you can spot a catcher on the fly.
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Woodlands, mature gardens and parks across the UK.
Medium – keep an eye out between May and September and you could be in luck.
Spotted Flycatchers are red-listed in the UK and are an RSPB Priority Species. Along with other declining migrant birds, we’re working to identify the causes behind the fall in Spotted Flycatcher numbers. We also work to make sure our woodland nature reserves are suitable for the birds to feed and breed successfully.
Have no fear, your snacks are safe! Kittiwakes may be a member of the gull family, but they’re not as taken with our chips as some of their feistier relatives. July is a great time to catch a Kittiwake on camera, as along with thousands of other seabirds, they’re busy raising their young on cliff-edges in huge multi-species colonies.
That said, a handful of cosmopolitan Kittiwakes have developed a taste for inland urban living. In July, the largest of these colonies can be found on the Tyne Bridge and Baltic Flour Mill building on the inner-city banks of the River Tyne. While this colony is going strong, overall Kittiwakes have experienced a serious decline in recent years.
So, if you live outside of the northeast, your best chance to see these gentle-looking gulls is to head to one of our awe-inspiring coastal cliff reserves. There, you can tick off several incredible species with one visit as you grab an eyeful of an incredible seabird city.
UK marine and intertidal habitats during the spring and early summer.
Medium – Kittiwakes only spend a brief time on our shores before heading back out to sea in the summer. An RSPB nature reserve featuring a seabird city is your best bet.
Kittiwakes have suffered serious declines and are a red-listed species in the UK. We’ve also named the birds an RSPB Priority Species and are conducting research to better understand the issues they’re facing.
Need to cool off this July? Let’s go for a Dip...per. These stunning little birds are world-class diving dynamos. The UK’s only aquatic songbird, Dippers are never found too far away from a fast-flowing freshwater stream. There, they wile away the hours performing daring underwater raids for tasty insect larvae and freshwater shrimps.
You might think Dippers get their name from their fondness of taking a dip in the water. However, it actually comes from the delightful bobbing action, or ‘dip’, that the birds perform when on land. Is this a way of communicating with other Dippers... or a dance of delight following a successful hunt? We’ll let you decide...
Dippers are present in the UK throughout the year and, starting in April, can lay up to three broods of eggs during the breeding season. That means July is a brilliant time to spot the birds as they dip, dive and... dip again to feed their final chicks of the season.
Fast flowing freshwater streams in Scotland, Wales and northern and southwestern England.
Medium – Dippers need very particular habitat to thrive. A fast-flowing, stony-bottomed stream is a great place to start.
Dippers are on the Amber list of Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK. Their numbers have followed a general downward trend over the last several decades and we need to work to prevent further loss.
This month is a great time to familiarise yourself with a Fulmar. A pillar of the seabird city community, in July, these gull-like members of the shearwater and petrel family nest alongside several other species on our coastal cliffs. Fulmars are smaller cousins of albatrosses, and, like their relatives, use stiff wings to glide effortlessly over the sea.
It’s a sublime spectacle but at this time of year, not for the faint-hearted. In July, fearless Fulmars leap off their lofty nests into the open air to catch updrafts that send them soaring high up the cliff face. Catch the right day this month, and you might see chicks take their talon-biting first plunge too.
Safe to say, flying Fulmars are quite the summer sight... but they’re also quite the smell. When threatened on the nest, Fulmars spit a foul-smelling oil at any intruder (including you!). Head to a seabird city this month and see if you can spot this nasty habit in action... just... make sure you keep your distance.
We’re at risk of losing some seabird species in just a few decades. Be part of the team tackling their biggest threats.
Coastal cliff faces around the UK.
Medium – like Kittiwakes, Fulmars spend most of their lives offshore. During the summer, you’ll need to pick them out amidst a flurry of nesting seabird species.
Fulmars are on the Amber list of UK Birds of Conservation Concern. However, over the last 250 years, North Atlantic Fulmar populations have actually expanded. More research needs to be done to find out why.
We hope you feel inspired to try and see some of these birds and events this month. We’d love to hear how you get on. You can share your photos with us at NotesonNature@rspb.org.uk We’ll share some of the best in a future issue of Notes on Nature.
Please be mindful when taking photos not to disturb wildlife or habitats. Further guidance can be found in The Nature Photographer's Code of Practice.
