Wheatear leads the great spring return

One or two were seen in southern England last week,while three werein fieldsaround the Yorkgate quarry on Otley Chevinon Monday. They will soon be back on breeding territories in the high pastures and rocky screes of the Dales and North York Moors.

The males arrive back first after travelling in leisurely fashion from the wintering areas south of the Sahara followed a week or two later by the females.

A pair that were together last year will often join up again in the old territory which he will defend vigorously against any neighbouringmales flying up and over any would-be invader repeatedly until he is forced to retreat.

The male has a short warbling song which often incorporates snatches of other bird songs, such as curlew and golden plover and also makes a sharp clicking call like a stonechat.

They nest in old rabbit holes or under large stones and are one of the few birds that will use bracken as a nesting material along with heather and grass.

Wheatearsarea great favourite with birdwatchers and are avery attractive, blueish grey with a black eye-patch and white feathers on their rumps and down the middle of their black-fringed tails – very noticeable when they fly up and a feature which gives this bird its name.

They will continue to arrive back for the rest of this month, throughout April and possibly into early May and this passage is then followed by that of the Greenland wheatear. This slightly larger and more brightly coloured race passes through Britain as part of an epic journey back to its breeding grounds in Iceland, Greenland and the eastern part of Canada.

Until quite recently the breeding population of wheatears in Britain was put at between 50,000 and 60,000 pairs a year and this number was thought to be declining.

But research carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology on the Breeding Bird Survey in the year 2000 suggested that there might in fact be between 250,000 and a million wheatears present here each summer.

The BTO is still preparing its latest Distribution Atlas of Breeding Birds covering the years 2007 to 2011 which will hopefully confirm these encouraging figures. The atlas will be published in 2013 or 2014. Another early returning migrant is the little ringed plover and one of these was reported at North Anston Pit in South Yorkshire at the weekend.

Meanwhile, some winter visitors were beginning to return to breeding grounds in Iceland with 54 whooper swans flying north over the RSPB's Saltholme reserve on Teesside, 50 over Terrington, North Yorkshire and 18 at Arram Carrs, East Yorkshire.

Mediterranean gullswere seen in several places, now easier to pick out with their thick bright red bills andblack hoods. Two were seen at Swillington Ings, Leeds one atBransholme, East Yorkshire, and three still around the car park at Holbeck Hall, Scarborough.

A lesser spotted woodpecker was seen on the bird feeders at the Fairburn Ings reserve near Castleford, while a great grey shrike was seen at the village of Brearton near Knaresborough.

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