British wildlife in March

By Ben Hoare

Published: Tuesday, 01 March 2022 at 12:00 am

Celebrate the month ahead with our photo gallery of beautiful wildlife photographs from around the UK in March.

Northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)

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Northern wheatear in Norfolk, England, UK. © Robin Chittenden

March in Britain is a fickle month in terms of the weather: sometimes bitterly cold, at others balmy enough for short sleeves. But whatever the weather has in store, March is when the first migratory birds arrive from their wintering grounds in Africa. Among them are wheatears, perky members of the chat family (and relatives of the robin). Males are smartest, with their black ‘mask’, grey upperparts and sandy underparts, but both they and the browner females have a pure white rump.

The earliest wheatear sightings – typically in mid-March – come from grassy headlands and cliffs on the south coast of England. By mid-April, sightings will be coming thick and fast, as the birds move to their upland breeding areas in Wales and northern Britain, always favouring areas of short turf or bare earth.

The northern wheatear’s scientific name, Oenanthe oenanthe, is an example of a tautonym, where the genus and specific name are the same.

Lesser spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopus minor)

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Lesser-spotted woodpecker. © Steve Round

Our tiniest woodpecker is probably most noticeable in March, as territorial males drum on trees and call to prospective mates. Now rare in Britain and invariably shy, the sparrow-sized species is tricky to see, but at least the woodland canopy is still leafless this month. A recent study found that competition with its great spotted relative is not behind its mysterious precipitous decline.

Common primrose (Primula vulgaris)

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Primroses and lesser celandines. © David Chapman

Said to be a favourite flower of the Queen, the primrose is appreciated by other queens too – bumblebees. In March, the plant’s yellow rosettes are a lifeline for newly emerged white- tailed and buff-tailed queens, as well as early bumblebees, bee-flies and butterflies. Find a primrose patch and enjoy a few mindful moments in nature as you wait to see what turns up.

Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)

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Comma butterfly. © Colin Varndell

The first butterfly of the year always lifts the spirits – and it’s often a comma. This butterfly seems to glow orange like the embers of a bonfire, instantly lighting up any March day. On closer inspection, the upper wings are a rich mix of oranges and browns, which, complete with the insect’s ragged wing outline, brilliantly impersonate an autumn leaf. In fact, the butterfly is named for the small white mark on the underside of its hind wing, but you’ll need a clear view of a resting individual to see this well.

Commas are seen so early in the year because, like brimstones, peacock butterflies and small tortoiseshells, they hibernate as adults. All it takes is a bit of March sunshine to lift the air temperature, and the hardy insects begin to stir from their winter resting places in hollow trees or among tree roots or piles of brushwood. Nectar is still in short supply in March, but primroses and catkins are both popular with freshly emerged commas. These butterflies also love to bask in the warmth, for example on the sunny side of a tree trunk.

Learn more about butterflies:

Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris)

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Marsh marigold flowers growing on the margin of a garden pond. © Laurie Campbell

Marsh marigold is like a massive version of lesser celandine, whose cheerful, bright yellow flowers are such a harbinger of spring. Both species are in flower by March and belong to the buttercup family, but they favour different habitats. Whereas lesser celandine is found in all kinds of open woodland, often on banks or beside paths, marsh marigold likes its feet wet. It thrives everywhere from ditches and marshes to flooded woodland, and is an excellent choice for garden ponds. Frogs like to hide among its tangle of huge, glossy green leaves.

It was once known as kingcup and has an unusual structure. Curiously, its half-a- dozen or so regal golden ‘petals’ are actually sepals. Ordinarily, a flower’s sepals hang low beneath the petals, which are the showiest and most colourful part of the plant – marsh marigold, however, is entirely petalless and so the sepals do the job instead.

Dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major)

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Dark-edged bee-fly. © Paul Hobson

Some insects seem to get all the love – bees, butterflies and dragonflies especially. Flies, not so much. But in March, there is a fly that stands out for its attractiveness and fascinating lifestyle. What’s more, it is abundant and widespread through most of Britain, though no longer in Ireland for some reason. Meet the dark-edged (or large or greater) bee-fly.

Flies excel at many things, including pollination and parasitism. This one is superb at both. You will often hear it first – a loud hum as it hangs motionless on whirring wings, just above head height. The next thing you’ll notice is its extraordinary proboscis. It is as if you are looking at a furry little ginger unicorn, though the long tongue is in fact a precision tool for extracting nectar from deep-throated flowers such as primroses, lungwort and ground-ivy, frequently while hovering.

Bee-flies resemble bees for a reason. The mimicry enables the female to sneak up to ground-nesting bees, particularly mining bees, so she can deftly flick her eggs towards the burrows. When the maggots hatch, they crawl inside to devour the hapless bee larvae. Look out for bee-flies – there are several species – on sunny days in gardens and other flowery places until May. They even have their own Twitter hashtag: #BeeFlyWatch.

Learn more about pollinating insects: 

Eurasian magpie (Pica pica)

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Eurasian magpie carrying nest material. © David Tipling

Britain and Ireland’s avifauna is among the most closely observed on Earth, thanks to long-running studies and updates from thousands of citizen scientists. Data in the BTO’s annual BirdTrends report show that 40 species of bird nest earlier than in the mid-1960s, with magpies advancing their laying date on average by 20 days. Other birds breeding substantially earlier include greenfinches, robins, great tits and swallows. Though this might help some species, in other cases it could lead to ‘seasonal mismatch’, where young no longer hatch when food is most plentiful.

The magpie’s scientific name, Pica pica, is an example of a tautonym, where the genus and specific name are the same.

Learn more about corvids: 

Butterbur (Petasites hybridus)

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Butterbur growing on a river bank in spring, Berwickshire, Scotland, UK. © Laurie Campbell

Roadside ditches and riverbanks are strewn with pink butterbur flowers this month. All male, they have the look of dwarf conifers, according to Richard Mabey in his epic Flora Britannica. Less charitably, they also recall loo brushes.

We tend to forget that our ancestors used plants not just in cooking and medicine, but also for cleaning, dyeing, stuffing, packaging, smoking and much else. In the days before fridges, butterbur leaves, which are huge and lotus-like and appear later in the spring, served as a cool wrapper for butter and other fresh foods.

Common chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita)

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A chiffchaff singing on branch early spring in Warwickshire, UK. © Mike Lane

The year’s first singing chiffchaff is a moment wildlife-lovers yearn for. Repeated over and over, the seesaw ditty is rudimentary yet uplifting, and before long you will be hearing it everywhere. Jeremy Mynott, co-author of The Consolation of Nature, points out that the two-syllable song is better reflected by the warbler’s old names: chip-chop, chit-chat, siff-saff.

Odds are, birds you hear will be migrants freshly arrived from their Mediterranean winter range, though the BTO estimates up to 15,000 chiffchaffs now overwinter in Britain, mainly in the south.

Learn more about birds in spring: 

Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium)

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Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage. © Colin Varndell

Sometimes it pays to get down and explore at ground level. This mat-forming woodland plant is easy to miss, being just 5–10cm high, and its common name is rather a mouthful. But a closer look reveals its subtle beauty. The glossy, rounded leaves recall those of succulents, while the yellowish-green flowerheads are like tiny versions of the euphorbias popular with florists and gardeners. Though the individual plants may be insignificant, they can grow in such dense profusion that, in early spring, they brighten up great swathes of the woodland floor.

Learn more about wildflowers: 

Common snipe (Gallinago gallinago)

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Common snipe. © Steve Round

“In the spring, tugged by the sun, these swamp-loving hunkered birds transform themselves into little horses and ride the sky.” Tim Dee’s lyrical description of male snipe performing their aerial courtship, in 2013’s Four Fields, captures its inherent strangeness. As the birds dive headlong, their splayed outer tail feathers vibrate in the rushing air to create a wonderful reedy sound called drumming. You feel it in your chest, as Dee says, like the “heart’s foghorn”. Experience it on marshy nature reserves managed for wading birds, or on healthy moors and bogs in upland areas.

The common snipe’s scientific name, Gallinago gallinago, is an example of a tautonym, where the genus and specific name are the same.

Razor shells (Ensis arcuatus)

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Razor shells. © James Lowen

The astonishing riches of our sandy and muddy shores, teeming with everything from marine worms to molluscs, are firmly out of reach for most of us. However, rough seas may reveal some of this buried treasure. The razor shell, or razor clam, is one of the more eye-catching burrowing residents to litter beaches after storms.

It spends its life in a vertical tunnel, feeding on detritus when the tide comes in. The animal may survive over a decade, steadily adding pretty growth rings to its paired shells, which relate to tidal cycles rather than calendar years.

Learn more about coastal wildlife: 

Mountain hare (Lepus timidus)

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March spells breeding season for Scotland’s mountain hares. © Getty

The first of March heralds spring, meteorologically speaking, with astronomical spring (the vernal equinox) falling on Friday 20 March. Yet this changeable month is usually snowier than December – remember 2018’s Beast from the East?

Undeterred, hares are already breeding, so that their first litter of the season will be born in time for the sudden flush of fresh greenery. All three species found in the British Isles – the mountain, Irish and brown – are preoccupied with bringing the next generation into the world. And that means fur will fly.

Despite controversial culls of mountain hares in the Scottish Highlands, which have led to drastic population declines, to see them boxing in snow is still a unique spectacle.

“The onset of breeding is dictated by the male hares,” says Benjamin Jones, a naturalist at Aigas Field Centre. “How can I put this nicely? In January, their testes start to grow, and then everything kicks off.” The hares chase each other up and down slopes as if possessed – they have such thick fur on the soles of their feet that their grip is amazing. “It looks chaotic when multiple males pursue a doe, but she’s in control and gives them what for,” Benjamin says. “The males have to demonstrate they’re persistent and can put up with a serious beating.”

Learn more about hares:

Northern gannet (Morus bassanus)

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Gannets return to their breeding colonies around Britain and Ireland in February. © Getty

After several months out at sea, wherever the fishing is best, gannets begin returning to their 20 or so breeding colonies around Britain and Ireland in February. Now the trickle turns into a torrent, as pairs (which mate for life) rush to reoccupy their own small piece of gannet real estate, a patch of rock just out of bill-stabbing range of their neighbours. However desolate our coasts feel in March, this month also sees many other seabirds, from fulmars to puffins, turn up at their nesting cliffs and islands.

Learn more about gannets and other seabirds: 

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)

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Blackthorn in flower. © Getty

“Without hedges, England would not be England,” the nature writer Richard Jefferies declared in 1884, adding, “I love their very thorns.” Thorniness is, of course, highly desirable in a hedge, which is why two of the most widespread hedgerow trees are blackthorn and hawthorn. Their leafing and flowering patterns are reversed. Blackthorn flowers first, then unfurls its leaves; hawthorn greens up well before it blossoms.

The Nature’s Calendar citizen-science project run by the Woodland Trust records these and many other signs of seasonal change.

Learn more about blackthorn: 

Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)

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Yellowhammer thrive in overground hedges, wildflowers margins and weedy arable fields. © Getty

Untidiness suits farmland birds such as the yellowhammer, just coming into breeding plumage. For decades, however, the prevailing mantra has been to neaten up our countryside – something that author Ben Macdonald diagnoses as ‘Ecological Tidiness Disorder’.

To help the yellowhammer, we need more weedy arable fields, scuffed-up pasture, spilt seeds and unruly wildflower margins, preferably with rewilded, overgrown hedges, at the bottom of which the female will soon be nestbuilding. Close by, her gaudy mate sings his short but sweet song, over and over.

Smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris)

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Smooth newt underwater. © Getty

Britain’s exceptionally mild spring in 2019, including the warmest February day on record, saw a sharp rise in early sightings of smooth newts in the BTO Garden BirdWatch survey (which records other wildlife, too).

The March reporting rate was comparable to a typical April. But stirring too soon can be risky if temperatures dip again.

On wet evenings, look out for newts on the move – whereas frogs hibernate in ponds, newts have to migrate there.

Drone fly (Eristalis tenax)

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Drone fly – an often overlooked but important pollinator. © Getty

Compared to bees, hoverflies tend to get overlooked, yet they’re important pollinators, too. Of Britain’s 280-odd species, one found in almost every garden is the drone fly, named for its resemblance to a big-eyed male honeybee, or drone.

In this species, adult females hibernate over winter, meaning they’re among the first hoverflies on the wing in spring. One reason for their abundance is that their aquatic larvae can cope with oxygen-deprivation, flourishing anywhere from dirty ditches to buckets of stagnant water.

Learn more about flies: 

Song thrush (Turdus philomelos)

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A singing song thrush perched on the top of a flowering hawthorn bush. © Getty

Song thrushes have been in full voice for several weeks now, as have mistle thrushes, blackbirds, robins, and dunnocks. As the dawn chorus in all its rich complexity is still a way off, they really stand out. So, it’s the ideal time to learn these common songs.

A good way of doing this is to ascribe characters to each one. “Whereas the blackbird and robin are musical,” writes Stephen Moss in 2017’s Wonderland, “the song thrush is chatty and loquacious, almost as if he is having a good gossip.”

Learn more about thrushes: 

Common toad (Bufo bufo)

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A common toad climbing over an old log. © Sandra Standbridge/Getty

Countless warty bodies will soon be stirring. Unlike frogs, toads only visit water to breed, and the timing of their annual migration varies enormously from year to year, according to the weather in early spring. The ‘big push’ – when toads move en masse to ancestral breeding ponds and lakes – occurs on damp, drizzly evenings when the temperature at sunset hovers at or above 7–8°C. The event usually occurs in March or April in northern England and Scotland.

All too often, the peak movement clashes with rush-hour traffic, leading to amphibian carnage. John Lewis- Stempel, in his book about ponds, Still Water, describes the sickening moment when toads and drivers meet: ‘Stationary, they are white lumps, almost leaves; the car headlights hit their pulsating throats, just before the tyres hit their bodies. We weave, we slow to a sympathetic toad-speed crawl but it is impossible to save them all.’

Fortunately, however, there is something we can do about it. If there is a local Toad Patrol, consider volunteering. It’s fun, simple and effective. On a busy night, in a few hours you could save over 100 toads.

Learn more about frogs and toads: 

Wild daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus)

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Wild daffodils in Rydal, England, UK. © Ashley Cooper/Getty

Few people realise that ‘daffs’ have a wild British cousin once fondly called the Lent Lily, and even fewer know that you can still track it down in quiet corners of the country. True wild daffodils are shorter and paler than the vast majority from plant nurseries, with a darker trumpet and slimmer grey-green leaves. To enjoy them, head to the meadows and churchyards of the area known as the ‘Golden Triangle’ in north- west Gloucestershire, or explore Dunsford Wood on Dartmoor and Farndale in the North York Moors.

Learn more about wildflowers: 

Common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)

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Male (cock) and female (hen) common pheasants. © JMrocek/Getty

Every year over 35 million pheasants, which originate from across Asia, are released in the UK. Their biomass exceeds that of all our native breeding birds put together, and they have the dubious distinction of being the animal most likely to be run over. Pheasants divide people but their theatrical early-spring displays are nonetheless worth watching. Cocks utter raspy calls and jump upwards in a flurry of whirring wings, producing low-frequency sound waves that amplify the territorial message.

Hairy-footed flower bee (Anthophora plumipes)

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A female hairy-footed flower bee. © Ian Redding/Getty

Darting hyperactively among the first spring flowers of a garden, park or hedgerow, this fast-flying bumblebee-lookalike bee can seem intent on not letting you have a good look. But persevere, because it is a lovely insect and one of the few bees active in March. Often also called the feather- footed flower bee, it has distinctive brush- like tufts of long hair on the lower part of its legs. The bee likes to hover in front of flowers, sometimes with its tongue out.

The hairy-footed flower bee is found in Wales and England as far north as Yorkshire (but is more common in the south-east). Due to its large size, it is often mistaken for a bumblebee. Its coloration is a giveaway, though: females are black with orange fur on the back legs; males are gingery. Another clue is the bee is very particular about the flowers it visits – usually comfrey, lungwort, green alkanet (an introduced species) or ground-ivy.

Learn more about bees: 

White-fronted goose (Anser albifrons)

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White-fronted goose in Norfolk, UK. © Mike Lane/Getty

Every winter, Britain hosts internationally important populations of migratory wild geese. Among the rarest are Greenland ‘white-fronts’ – the fast-declining, orange-billed subspecies of the white-fronted goose. They winter mainly in Ireland and Scotland, being increasingly hard to see in England. Soon they will be getting ready for an epic return migration north.

To reach their Arctic tundra nesting grounds, amid glaciers and snowy peaks, they must fly over the North Atlantic, Iceland and the vast Greenland ice cap. Families stick together for the whole journey.

Common dog violet (Viola riviniana)

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Common dog violet. © Getty

After a dreary, washed-out winter, violets bring a welcome splash of colour to woods, verges and meadow edges. They used to form multicoloured carpets, together with species such as cowslips and bugle, but large displays are hard to find nowadays, due to disturbance by deer and woods becoming overgrown.

Keen botanists know to examine the backwards-pointing extension, or spur, behind each flower. It is pale in common dog violets, dark in early dog violets. There are also sweet violets with scented blooms.

Learn more about wildflowers: 

Main image: Comma butterfly. © Colin Varndell