Spring is awakening in London, and the city’s woodlands and open spaces are alive with the sounds of nature’s symphony. From the rhythmic drumming of woodpeckers—great spotted, lesser spotted, and the laughing green—to the melodic calls of chiffchaffs heralding the season, March is a magical time for bird enthusiasts. But this is just the beginning.
Discover the full story of London’s avian wonders and the secrets of their songs in our upcoming article. Learn where to spot redpolls and siskins hiding among birch trees, hear the haunting calls of woodcocks at woodland edges, and witness the tumbling displays of lapwings over open fields. By the end of the month, the dawn chorus will have begun, led by the chiffchaff’s unmistakable “chiff-chaff,” a true harbinger of spring.
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Bird Song
This is the best month to hear woodpeckers drumming. The drum of the great spotted woodpecker, which is now relatively common, is delivered at the rate of ten taps a second and can be heard up to a quarter of a mile away. He carefully picks a tree that resonates and then produces a drum which slightly tails off at the end. This compares with the lesser spotted woodpecker, whose drumming is both quieter, rarer, more evenly delivered, with no descent at the end. Occasionally, more piping notes are to be heard from both whilst they chase each other courting. The third of London’s woodpeckers, the green woodpecker, rarely drums, but its laughing call is often to be heard as it flies through woodland. The call is said to be slightly more demonic in March. All three woodpeckers can be heard as centrally as Tooting Common.
Among groups of birch and alder trees, redpolls and siskins may still be seen. The siskin has a ‘merry ripple of notes’ with a drawn out ‘tsee’, whereas the redpoll produces high pitched metallic trills. Both are so secretive they are usually heard before they are seen. The harsh calls of magpies and jays can also be heard in woodland, but this is less so than in other months. More rarely, woodcocks may be heard at the edges of woodland in places such as Ongar Park Wood and Limpsfield Chart.
They are now patrolling their territory again, croaking like frogs as they do so. In conifer woodland the mouse-like calls of goldcrests can still be heard and the high rapid insistent ‘if-he, if-he’ calls of coal tits. Although pheasants are in woodland, they are most commonly seen along country lanes. The males are now resplendent, some with their signal red ear tufts. They call loudly and coarsely to their harem of females. Wood pigeons are coo-ing, but their wing claps are now more likely to catch our attention. These attract females as well as acting as an alarm call.
On more open land lapwings, where they still occur, have now started their tumbling aerial displays in earnest, with the associated wing-humming and ‘pee-wit’ calls. Snipes are ‘drumming’, making humming and buzzing noises in places like Dagenham Chase. Linnets may still be in flocks, chattering to each other on Rainham marshes. Redwings are doing the same, monotonously piping before they leave to fly north. Black-headed gulls have mainly fallen silent as they prepare to leave London for their nesting sites on moorland. At this moment they are congregating on open fields and football pitches, spacing themselves evenly and just looking at each other.
There are other, rarer birds worth listening out for if you are in the right habitat. Corn bunting, meadow pipit, wheatear, reed bunting and the giggling of dabchicks can all be heard this month. Herons are also having some strong conversations with whilst they are nesting. In St James’s Park, pinioned male eider ducks make the most solicitous of all courting calls. It is a slightly surprised ‘oooooooooo’, reminiscent of a pantomime dame.
By the end of the month, most birdwatchers and most Londoners should be listening out for one bird. This is the chiffchaff, the first of our summer visitors arriving back from the Mediterranean or North Africa. These remarkable birds, weighing as little as seven grams, may just have completed a three thousand mile journey. In London, their call announces spring, much as the cuckoo’s call did to Londoners in the past. Gilbert White called them ‘harbingers of the spring’. The call is one of the easiest to recognise, being a repetitive ‘chiff-chaff’. Occasionally there is a little confusion with a ‘chiff-chiff-chaff’ or ‘chaff’chaff’chiff’. Either way, the only bird it is likely to be confused with is the ‘teacher-teacher’ call of the great tit. The first has a bouncing quality, whereas the second is a more mechanical see-saw sound with no bounce at all. By the end of the month a dawn chorus with a somewhat limited number of choristers has at last begun.
