As a yellow army of Daffodils, Primroses and Lesser Celandines begin to appear and overwintering butterflies and queen bumblebees tentatively emerge, many of our winter visitors will take the improving conditions here as their cue to desert our shores for long, arduous journeys to far-flung locations. The noisy and extensive dawn chorus here in March, however, is ample demonstration that this month has already become a hectic time for our resident British birds. For any individuals that successfully negotiated the winter, their reward will have already come as they find themselves either on or close to their breeding grounds, putting them in pole position to race ahead in the mating game. However with most summer migrants well on their way, the resident birds will be only too aware that they won’t have our gardens, woodlands, farmland, scrub and wetlands all to themselves for long! Despite many of our summer visitors still being thousands of kilometres from Britain, the traditional advance party of Wheatears, Sand Martins and Chiffchaffs will have already begun to arrive at many southern migration watchpoints during this month.
