Looking for love despite the gloom

On a cold wet gloomy morning last week I heard my first green woodpecker of the year make its soft laughing call.

The males and females lead solitary lives for the earlier part of the winter and, as ground feeders, will have found life difficult during the recent heavy falls of snow.

Unlike great spotted and lesser spotted woodpeckers, they do not usually drum on tree trunks and branches and instead their calls, sometimes known as yaffling, are their only way of attracting a mate and establishing territories.

Towards the end of March the call changes, the laugh becoming much richer and more plummy. The male will cling to a tree near a nest hole he has found, calling to attract a female, while a female who is interested in him will call back from a nearby tree where she has also found a potential nest.

Each will examine the other's nest site and after this process will usually settle down as a breeding pair.

There have also been some reports of drumming great spotted woodpeckers although I have not heard one yet. Another bird to listen out for now at dawn and dusk is the blackbird. Older males usually join up with the females they were with the previous year and will have stayed around their territory during the winter if enough food was available.

The singers just now are young males trying to establish themselves and they will also be displaying on lawns, approaching a brown female with head feathers lifted, rump feathers raised and tail spread.

Blue tits are also singing briefly, and going in and out of potential nest holes removing any debris as they try to interest a female, while great tits are singing their "teacher teacher" songmuch more loudly.

Mistle thrushes are already singing but some have gone much further than that.

I was in Leeds city centre last week when I suddenly heard the persistent cheeping sound of hungry chicks. I looked up and, in the amber portion of the traffic light next to me was a mistle thrush nest with one of the parents feeding the young. Such early broods are often doomed to failure but the warmth from the traffic lights and the buses rumbling by must have been enough to keep the worst of the weather at bay. Also the parents must be continuing to find enough food.

Geese were one of the main features of the week with two tundra geese seen with a flock of 50 greylag geese at Flamborough Head, where a flock of 22 brent geese of the pale-bellied form have also remained. Four of these were also seen near Whitby Abbey.

A white-fronted goose was with greylag geese at the Nosterfield Nature reserve in North Yorkshire and 14 pink-footed geese were also seen there. A Ross's goose, presumably an escapee, was at Edderthorpe Flash, South Yorkshire.

Up to 50 whooper and eight Bewick's swans were at Wroot, North Lincolnshire while a Bewick's swan was seen with the whoopers still at North Duffield Carrs near Selby.

A drake ring-necked duck continues to be seen at Pugney's Country Park near Wakefield while another drake is at the Cowpen Bewley Country Park on Teesside.

Two hen harriers, a male and ringtail and a merlin were seen at the RSPB's Blacktoft Sands reserve while a bittern and redhead smew were among the birds at Tophill Low – a woodcock has been showing well around the bird feeders at the visitor centre there.

The female black-throated thrush continues to be seen at the village of Newholm near Whitby.

Three long-tailed ducks, a great northern diver and 21 purple sandpipers were seen at Filey while a Lapland bunting, merlin and great northern diver were at Flamborough.

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