Of corn blobs and goggle-eyed plovers

From the ‘ethereal minstrel’ skylark to the yellowhammer with its ‘little-bit of-bread-and-no-cheese’ call, these birds are inextricably linked to our farming heritage, says Jack Watkins

- Jack Watkins

AMONG the diverse range of British bird habitats, the largest is what you can broadly call farmland. Its mix of arable fields, sown and natural grasslands, moors, hedges, ditches, orchards and small woods accounts for about 71% of the land area. It is, therefore, inevitable that the species that shelter, feed and nest within it are among the most closely monitored, in order to maintain an overall sense of the health of our avian populations.

Some species are more obviously farmland birds than others. The robin nests in farm scrub, but is equally associated with gardens, as is the wren, with its bright, perky song that can be heard almost anywhere. Goldfinches, since they discovered a taste for the sunflower seeds kindly souls put out in feeders, have lost something of their old ‘birds of the open fields’ aura. The following 10 species, however, are inextricably linked to Britain’s farmland heritage across many centuries.

Skylark

IS there a happier bird in Britain than the skylark? Barclay Wills, chronicler of the last years of the South Downs shepherds, wrote of ‘tireless larks… singing overhead’ and William Wordsworth called it an ‘ethereal minstrel’ pouring ‘upon the world a flood of harmony’. Its rapid song is so continuous it can last five minutes, the metallic piping often coming from so high up that it appears to be the work of a dot in the sky.