March’s Birds of the Month: which birds will you see?

Uninterrupted skies, rolling hills and rugged fells. With its spectacular views, it’s easy to see why the UK’s countryside has been celebrated by so many famous poets and artists throughout history.  
 
But these lands aren’t just home to breathtaking beauty spots. When managed with nature in mind, farmland hedgerows, hay meadows and woodlands can all hum with life.  
 
With the light lingering in the evening for longer, March is the perfect time to head outdoors. As birds make their return to breeding grounds, here are six birds you could see on a country jaunt: 

In March, Lapwings break away from their wintering flocks and arrive back on their breeding territories – typically on wet grassland on farms. Here, the male bird begins to advertise his availability through a series of tumbling displays, full of twists and turns. 
 
Black and white on first glance, a closer look will reveal the Lapwing’s plumage has gleaming iridescent shades of green when the light hits. Both males and females sport a fetching crest on their heads. Their long and broad wings beat rapidly as they zig zag through the skies. 
 
If you look in the right places, Lapwings can be easy to spot. They’ve earned a whole string of nicknames across different regions, including ‘peewit’, thanks to their loud kazoo-like call. Whatever you might call a Lapwing, it’s undeniable that their distinctive songs are a sure sign of spring.

As a flock of Linnets erupts into flight, take note of the white flashes on their wings and on their forked tails, and the flurry of twittering calls. These birds are a familiar finch across the UK, but in their winter plumage, they can be a little tricky to confidently identify – and are sometimes optimistically mistaken for the less common Twite.  
 
As the warmer months arrive, the males transform from their classic ‘little brown job’ get up. Their spring attire sees them decked out with a reddy-pink chest and a forehead patch. They can be separated from Redpolls by their silvery grey head and their solid chestnut-coloured backs – this rich colour is also obvious in the plainer female birds.  
 
Their thick beaks are perfectly adapted to eating seeds. Linnets take their name for their love of Linseed, the seed of the Flax plant and their Latin name, Linaria cannabina, refers to their penchant for eating Hemp.

While House Sparrows have flown to the top spot of Big Garden Birdwatch for the past 21 years, their close relative, the Tree Sparrow is much harder to find. These birds have typically remained as rural dwellers in the UK, unlike their commoner cousins.  
 
However, the Tree Sparrow’s range does extend to southeast Asia. Surprisingly, in China, these birds are a regular sight in city centres – even more so than the House Sparrow.  
 
Tree Sparrows have a rust-coloured cap, unlike the male House Sparrow’s matching one in grey. They also have a distinctive black spot on their cheek. The males and females both look the same, and Tree Sparrow pairs mate for life. 

Head out for a countryside stroll along the coast and you might get the chance to witness an iconic performance. Perched at the top of bush, a little yellow bunting – as bright as the surrounding gorse flowers – belts out his distinctive ditty: ‘a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese’. 
 
The females aren’t quite as vivacious, but with a streaky brown body and a lemon tinge on their bellies and head, they’re a welcome sight all the same. 
 
Elsewhere, Yellowhammers were once a familiar feature of farmland, although they have recently become a much less common.

The Curlew’s presence in our countryside, particularly its bubbling song, has long been referenced in novels and poetry. Sometimes it represents loneliness and grief, other time it depicts joy – but most often, this iconic bird is used to evoke an image of the UK’s uplands. 
 
Curlews are easy to identify. As the UK’s largest wader, it’s roughly 60cm long – with 10-15cm worth of beak. This distinct curved bill helps it to forage deep in gloopy mud and marshy grassland for invertebrates to feast on.  
 
While numbers on our shores are smaller in spring than through winter, the UK hosts around 25% of the world’s breeding population of Curlews.

Nicknamed the ‘fat bird of the barley’, the Corn Bunting is the largest of all the UK’s buntings. This brown, streaky bird is often described as dumpy, owing to its stocky build and its short tail. 
 
Corn Buntings are very much at home perched on a farm fence post or wire and had adapted to live closely alongside people for thousands of years. It thrives in rich, open grassland areas – like arable farms – building nests in among crops or on grassy margins. 

Its song sounds as though someone nearby is jangling a set of keys.

Where once change happened slowly, since the Second World War the changes to the way we farm have happened at pace. There was a national effort to boost food security across the UK, driven financially by the Government. Farmers did what was asked of them.   
 
In a bid to make farmland more productive, wetlands were drained, hedgerows were removed and livestock numbers increased.  
 
In recent years, small farms and mixed crofts have been replaced with large specialist farms. The loss of hay meadows, the increase in machinery and the use of pesticides have caused destruction to birds and their nests while food sources have been depleted. 
 
All of these changes have had huge impacts to what were, up until recently, farmland’s most iconic species. 
 

Many incredible farmers and crofters are already showing you can farm productively and profitably and make space for nature. 
 
But to do this on the scale needed, new independent research says the UK Government must increase investment in agriculture for nature-friendly farming to £5.9 billion a year. This should be divided between the four UK countries based on their need and specifically earmarked for nature-friendly farming.

We hope you feel inspired to try and see some of these birds this month. We’d love to hear how you get on. You can send your photos to 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.