Five birds to find
April is in some ways the most exciting of all the spring months. Migration is in full swing and there is expectation of something new every day, especially in the second half of the month. Here are five species which almost define what April birding is all about.
Cuckoo
Though there will always be non-birders who tell you they have heard a Cuckoo already in March, rest assured that they will have heard Collared Doves. April is the month to hear the first Cuckoo of spring – usually the second half of the month for most of us. Only the males make the disyllabic ‘cuck-oo’ song. Females have a less well known but no less pleasing bubbling call (which is often associated with egg-laying). Though most Cckoos, male and female, are grey above, a particular prize sighting is of a female of the ‘hepatic’ of ‘rufous’ morph, where much of the upperparts are orange-brown (with many dark bars). Very beautiful.
Ring Ouzel
The shy, mountain-loving upland blackbird, is a classic April passage bird, beloved of patch workers. During migration over land, they are often seen in the same areas as on previous years. This is at least partly because they have particular habitat preferences for somewhere to stop off and refuel on the journey. Ring Ouzels tend to like habitats which look a bit like their favoured upland terrain with short-cropped or sparse vegetation and trees or hedges in which to bolt at the first hint of Man. Males are particularly striking with a bold white breast crescent, pale fringed to the dark body feathers (giving a scaly appearance) and silvery-lined wings. Blackbirds are pleasant enough on the eye, but their shy, hillbilly cousins are in a different league!
Grasshopper Warbler
Three of our regular warblers share a reputation for being much easier to hear singing than to actually see. These include the Lesser Whitethroat, which sings from the middle of a dense hedge, then sneaks several yards unseen before it sings again in the next bit of hedge , before repeating the trick. The Cetti’s Warbler does a similar trick, but usually in vegetation at the edge of water somewhere. The third species is, of course, the Grasshopper Warbler. This bird usually produces its extraordinary, high-pitched, insect-like ‘reeling’ song from the middle of a tangle of Wild Rose or Bramble (or some such dense vegetation)and doesn’t even bother to move, safe in the knowledge that it is all but invisible. Variations in the song come from the turning of the head, rather than a change of position. If seen well, it is a slightly streaked, rather handsome warbler, a little like a Sedge Warbler, but lacking the latter’s very bold supercilium (pale ‘eyebrow’), and lacking a Sedge Warbler’s happy-go-lucky, show off personality.
Bar-tailed Godwit
This spot could be held by a number of arctic breeding waders which pass through the UK in April, often in the most gorgeous of plumages. That said, few can compete in looks with a male ‘Barwit’ in full, deep brick-red breeding plumage. They are shorther legged than Black-tailed Godwits, with larger white rumps and no white wing back (and of course a barred tail); and the reddish underparts continue on the belly behid the legs to the undertail coverts (largely white on a ‘Blackwit’). Females are larger, longer-billed and quite Curlew-like in patter, though more the size of a Whimbrel and with a long straight or slightly upturned bill.
Slavonian Grebe
There are only 30-odd pairs of this superb grebe nesting in the country, all on lochs in the Scottish Highlands. The RSPB’s Loch Ruthven is one of the best places to watch them without disturbing them. In the spring, they are transformed from small black-and-white grebes to utterly gorgeous birds, with flamboyant golden ‘ear tufts’ coming from a black head, reddish neck and flanks, and blacking back. You may even see a pair doing their running, dancing display.