WATCH THE SEASONS

As garden birdwatchers will already know, most garden birds are resident species, here all year round. The same is true of the woodlands. However, some species, including most of the warblers, flycatchers, and a few odds and ends, such as Hobby, Cuckoo and Turtle Dove, are summer visitors. And some more, such as some finch species and winter thrushes, are in the woods in the winter to early spring. It is a good first step in identifying birds in a forest, if you know what could and shouldn’t be there, simply because of the season.

Blackcap is mainly a spring visitor, but in recent decades, many have started wintering in the UK