The Woodland birds
As their name suggests, woodlands are found in the western edge of Europe. they are sometimes called the “Britain’s temperate rain forest.” Most of their tress are oaks, usually the durmast or sessile oak in Britain. They are closely grazed by sheep and other animals that the woods are very open beneath the trees. Grass and mosses cover the ground rather than shrubs.
The resident bleeding birds of these beautiful woods such as blue tits, great tits, nuthatches and woodpeckers, are joined by a special trio of migrants from Africa in the spring-wood warblers, pied flycatchers and restarts. These three can be found nowhere else in such numbers. They come to North west Europe in spring, having spent most of the winter in Africa south of the Sahara.
The woods are alive with bird songs in the month of may and June. The accelerating trill of singing woods can be heard everywhere. Redstarts, flicking their nusty tails, sally after flying insects or drop to the open ground to pick up some morsel. Stricking black and white male pied flycatchers display and sing their hestant phrases a the entrance to the nestboxes or natural holes, trying to attract the browner females. Pied flycatchers seem to depend on nestboxes.
