Black Grouse (above)
Is there a more gloriously exotic British bird than the Black Grouse? The fancy-Dan males, with their startling white undertails and lyre-shaped tail feathers, are not even plain old black as their name would suggest, but a magnificent rich, shiny dark blue (only visible in decent sunlight, of course).
And then there is the lekking, when males (especially at this time of year), gather to strut and sing and perhaps dance and do battle in order to impress the smaller, cryptically marked females. And the sound they make, a wonderful continuous bubbling interspersed by sneezy explosions, is one of the great British bird sounds.
Leks (display grounds) are probably the easiest places to see Black Grouse and there are several in upland sites from Wales to the Scottish Highlands that are well known and allow you to watch from a decent distance, where you won’t disturb these very sensitive and vulnerable birds. The general rule is get in position at the site before the sun thinks about breaking the horizon, as the show often comes to a close very soon after sunrise.
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Reduced to a breeding population of perhaps only a thousand pairs spread thinly across England and Wales, the tiny Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is a bird in trouble. This would be a terrible tragedy for any bird, but seems particularly sad for such a lovely little one!
Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers are truly tiny, about sparrow-sized, and this time of year is probably the best time to see them; once the leaves appear on the trees these tiddlers can hide behind the smallest bit of foliage!
And they are relatively noisy at this time. They are easiest to pick up by sound: either the even, long, rattling drumming or the Kestrel-like ‘kee-kee-kee-kee’ call, which has been compared to a higher pitched Green Woodpecker yaffle (at least in terms of cadence).
Apart from being very small, with a matching small bill, they also lack the red undertail of Great Spotted Woodpeckers, have barred backs and only males show any red – on the crown.
Grey Wagtail
The metallic, piercing call of the Grey Wagtail has presumably, like that of the Dipper, evolved to cut through the sound of turbulent water in the fast flowing upland streams both species favour for their habitat.
These days, it may be noisy city traffic the call is cutting through, as Grey Wagtails seem to have a fondness for shopping centre roofs and the likes. These are arguably the prettiest and most elegant of our three regular wagtail species, with exaggeratedly long tails, lemon yellow undertail coverts and a handsome black bib on the breeding males.
The grey in the name, of course refers to the plain grey back, but don’t let that name deceive you, this is a bird that still delights the eye with bright colour.
Treecreeper
The tiny Treecreeper is another one of those birds which is always a great pleasure to watch. They look very cute to start with, but their endearing habit of spiralling up tree trunks like a little tree-climbing mouse is something special.
They are surprisingly common birds, with some 200,000 breeding pairs; but they are much more often heard than seen, and then only by those who still retain very high frequencies in their hearing range!
The slightly buzzing repeated ‘seeeee seeee’ is perhaps the most frequent sound, but Treecreepers also have a delicate little sweeping warble song, a little like the start of a Willow Warbler’s descending song. Listen for the song, and look for the white-bellied, bark-backed birds themselves, in a wood near you.
Corn Bunting
The big, dumpy, yet ultimately nondescript Corn Bunting has suffered just about as much as any of our farmland birds in recent years.
They are now localised birds of favoured arable farmland, with a UK breeding population of not much more than 10,000 breeding pairs.
AIf you are lucky enough to still have them near you, listen for the famous ‘jangling keys’ song and look for a plump bird approaching the size of a Starling.