Elusive quail proves hard for spotters

But one bird still arriving here from further south is the quail, with singing males being heard from within wheat, barley and hayfields across Britain just now.

The song is a thin "whit whit whit" sound, repeated seven or eight times and is best listened for on warm clear summer evenings or early mornings.

Hearing a quail is one thing, seeing one is quite another.

Pinpointing the singing bird's position is difficult because it has ventriloquial powers and there is little chance of it showing itself. I know of one birdwatcher who, with several others, surrounded a bush where a quail was singing but still failed to catch even aglimpse of it.

With luck anda long wait you may be rewarded when the singer bobs his black and yellow striped head above the crop for a second or takes a brief flight to another part of the same field.

Faced with such difficulties there is always the temptation to play a tape of a singing quail to tempt one out into the open. Thismust be resisted as it is not only illegal but can disrupt any potential breeding.

Quails that have wintered south of the Sahara begin to move north in the later winter and cross the Mediterranean between March and mid-May. One or two can be heard in Britain from mid-April onwards.

Meanwhile, quail that have wintered in North Africa and Iberia will nest there in mid-February and, remarkably, the broods they produce are ready for migration just two months later and are sexually mature after 12 to 15 weeks.

It is these birds that we are hearing now as they move into northern Europe and Britain.

Numbers vary greatly from year to year depending on how successful the quail's first broodshave been.There werejust 150 singing males across the whole of Britain in 1991 compared with at least 1,600 pairs in the last big quail year of 1989.

As many as 50 per cent of the quail returning here favour traditional sites and one of these is the hay meadows of the Lower Derwent Valley between York and Selby.

This summer, Natural England staff have so far located 52 calling males in the valley from Wheldrake Ings at the northern end to North Duffield Carrs at the south, while the fields around Ellerton churchyard are another good place to listen.

Quail have been caught and fitted with colour leg rings in the valley for three years now – 21 have been caught so far – and one fitted with a leg ring last summer was caught again at the same site this year, the first time this has happened in Britain. All the birds caught have shown signs of having bred previously.

Along the Yorkshire coast, great skuas were seen off most vantage points with 18 off Flamborough Head. There were also some movements of Manx shearwaters.

A few green sandpipers are starting to be seen including one at Blacktoft Sands where there were also five spotted redshanks still in full summer plumage, ruff and 30 plus black-tailed godwits. A spoonbill continues to be seen there.

There was an exceptional count of at least 20 hobbies over Thorne Moors, South Yorkshire on Sunday and more of these dashing little falcons are being seen elsewhere in the region chasing and eating dragonflies while still on the wing.

At least one honey buzzard continues to be seen from the raptor viewpoint at Wykeham Forest, North Yorkshire, along with goshawks and common buzzards, while the gentle purring of turtle doves can be heard in nearby birch trees.