silverguide.site –

A swallow recorded at the start of March, sand martins mid-month. This year, many harbingers of spring have come early due to the warming climate, so here on the island, the question was: would our Manx shearwaters return early too?

Few places have birds named after them, but the Isle of Man is one (Sardinia another, for Sardinian warblers), the name granted in 1835 thanks to a large shearwater colony on the Calf of Man, an island off our south-west corner. That population was devastated by rats from a shipwreck, but after a rodent eradication programme by the Manx Wildlife Trust, numbers have rebounded to more than 1,500 breeding pairs.

Last week I visited my regular haunt for connecting with these ghosts of the ocean – St Michael’s Isle on the Langness peninsula. With my back to the 17th-century fort, I scanned the waves with my telescope, watching for the Manxies’ distinctive sweeping flight. It wasn’t a long wait, maybe 30 minutes before the first outriders flashed into view. They were back.

After a round trip of 10,000km from their wintering quarters off Brazil and Argentina, they were shearing over the Irish Sea to occupy their nest burrows on the Calf. There they will raise a single chick, then leave it in July or August. The chick will set off alone on that epic journey to join the adults in the southern hemisphere.

Manxies are special birds for me. Working on ships, I’ve seen them in locations from Tierra del Fuego to the Isle of Rùm. Most memorably, as a young novice birder, I made a pilgrimage to Dungeness, Kent. I came across three men lying on their backs facing the 21 miles of sea to the coast of France. Legs outstretched, two had naked right feet, their toes supporting long brass telescopes. “Arctic skua left, Manx shearwater right,” one called to another who took notes. I looked through my binoculars and saw nothing.

I gradually realised they weren’t having me on – the birds were there. And I’d witnessed for the first time the fanaticism of “sea watchers” and the mysterious world they observe. I knew one day I would join their ranks. As for the shearwaters, their arrival home was right on time, and very welcome they were too.

• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com