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, and are just a few of our familiar birds that make two incredible journeys every year, a southwards autumn flight to Africa and a northbound return to Britain, Ireland and other parts of Europe in the spring. The swallows Chris and Kate waved goodbye to at Portland a few weeks back are amongst the most travelled of our passerines (perching birds), with many winging their way to South Africa for the winter.

This is not a one-stop-hop; the distance and obstacles swallows and other long-distance migrants have to overcome means they have to make many refueling stops, which are determined, to some extent, by local rainfall patterns in the areas through which they pass. Rain means vegetation growth which means winged insects, the perfect fly-by snack for a hungry swallow.

The BTO and in tandem with partners the and Naturama in Burkina Faso are undertaking an ambitious project to discover where our summer migrants are spending the winter and what new threats they face. They're hoping to find out why many of our summer migrants are suffering alarming population declines but they are also providing training to local ecologists. For up-to-date information on what is happening in Africa see the .

Species that had reached west Africa by mid-October included and . Neither of these is likely to go much further than Ghana (as if that wasn't far enough for a bird weighing 15-20 grams!) and certainly won't be joining our swallows in South Africa.

In response to last week's blog post, avid Autumnwatcher Kevin Dean posted about a redstart seen in his Reading garden in early November (posts 7 and 9). We noticed from that it was in fact a female black redstart, a point also picked up by the eagle-eyed 'earthstarnick'.

Whilst our redstarts were already well on their way to west Africa by early October, small numbers of their close relatives remain throughout the year, with . Black redstarts prefer rocky areas to woodland and unlike their cousins, are therefore quite at home in a range of urban habitats including derelict buildings and construction sites!

Another species heading to Britain and Ireland at this time of year is the tiny and very wonderful . At 9cm long and a weighing a mere 5-6 grams they share the crown of our smallest bird with the firecrest. Sadly the very cold start to 2009 both in this country and across Scandinavia wreaked havoc on the populations of these diminutive insectivores and we have yet to see much of an increase in numbers this autumn, unlike in .

An old name for the goldcrest was 'woodcock pilot' as, weirdly, they were once thought to ride on the back of these unusual waders (which I talked about in last week's blog post). Given the forecast weather conditions, goldcrests are going to need all the help they can get to reach us safely this year.

Talking of bad weather, seabirds risk starvation then being washed ashore in strong storms. But there is a sort of silver lining to this: if you are out on a bracing beach walk, don't forget to check any tideline bird corpses for rings. If you do find a ringed bird, please, . Bit gruesome but essential science.

As mentioned in last week's programme, please . The response has been phenomenal so far: THANK YOU!