Drumming woodpeckers

Listen out for great spotted woodpeckers drumming on trees this month to announce their presence in the woods! For a long time, it was thought that woodpeckers had spongy skulls that absorb some of the impact and protect the brain – people have even copied this idea to create safety helmets.

But a recent study disputed this common belief, showing that there is no cushioning effect. The woodpeckers use their head as a stiff hammer, not a shock absorber. Instead, it's their small size that protects their brain, as smaller animals can withstand higher deceleration. Woodpeckers just shrug off blows that would give us a serious concussion.

Keep an eye or ear out for these hardy hammer-heads in woodlands such as our Bowdown Woods reserve near Newbury and Dancersend near Wendover.

Fluffy catkins

Goat willow is a small willow tree found in ditches, reedbeds, wet woodland, and on urban waste ground. It is one of the UK's commonest willows and is known for the fluffy, silver-grey, male catkins - or 'pussy willows' - that appear in January and turn bright yellow in March.

The female catkins are greenish. Both male and female catkins are an important winter food source for insects.

The goat willow has many common names, including 'Great Sallow', 'Sally' and 'Black Sally'; the name 'Palm willow' refers to its use as a decoration in churches during Easter. Dry Sandford Pit near Abingdon is the perfect spot for this wet-loving willow.

Courtship dances

Great crested grebes have an elaborate courtship dance. If you're lucky enough to live close to a pond or lake with these elegant birds, watch as the males and females mirror each other on the water, diving down and rising up in perfect unison. This culminates in the famous ‘weed dance’ where both birds fill their bills with greenery before rearing up to meet breast-to-breast, paddling wildly to maintain balance.

Great crested grebes were once very endangered in the UK. Historically they were hunted for their soft feathers which were used a substitute for fur, and elaborate head feathers which decorated women’s hats. Now protected, their numbers have recovered and great crested grebes are once again a relatively common sight. A great place to spot them is our Hosehill Lake reserve near Reading.

Frogspawn filling ponds

You may see great jelly masses of early frogspawn in ponds in February if the temperature rises enough. It may look like a huge amount but very little will survive to become adult frogs. Instead much of it will provide food for predators from birds to dragonfly larvae.

Our Greenham Common nature reserve near Newbury is a great place to see all kinds of amphibians, and the pond at Letcombe Valley is a frogspawn hotspot.

If you have a pond in your garden, don’t introduce frogspawn from elsewhere, wait until frogs find your pond and create their own.

Learn how to create a wildlife pond

Travelling toads

Toads breed later in the spring than frogs but this month you should see them start to return to their breeding areas. Some toads have to cross roads to reach the ponds. You can help them cross safely by becoming a toad patroller.

It's easy to tell toadspawn and frogspawn apart if you have both in your pond: toad spawn is made up of long, linear strands of eggs, while frog spawn is made up of large clumps.

Learn more about toad patrols

Herons and heronries

Grey herons build their large nests in trees by rivers or lakes. You’ll often see many nests in the same tree and these groups of nests are known as heronries.

Male herons put on a courtship dance to attract a female. The male will stretch his long neck upwards and then lower it over his back with the bill pointing upwards.

Grey herons are the most familiar bird in the heron family that you'll see in the UK, but you could also see other heron species including little egret, cattle egret, great white egret and bitterns. Look out for all of them at our Calvert Jubilee nature reserve near Bicester or Weston Turville Reservoir in Bucks.

Ravens raring to go

The raven is a massive member of the crow family – even bigger than a buzzard – historically found on mountains and in forests where it feeds on carrion. The raven has been expanding its range in recent years, however, and as well as appearing at our woodland reserves including Moor Copse near Newbury and Whitecross Green Wood in Oxfordshire, we’ve regularly heard its throaty ‘cronk’ call above BBOWT headquarters in Oxford! 

The raven is one of the first birds to get underway with raising the next generation. Males perform breeding displays of posturing, preening and bill-caressing from February onwards, and females will lay four to six blue-green eggs in a nest of twigs and moss. 

Recovering polecats

A member of the mustelid family, which includes the stoat and badger, the polecat is roughly the size of a ferret - its domesticated cousin. Perceived as bloodthirsty animals, polecats were declared vermin during the reign of Elizabeth I and the name 'polecat' was used to refer to vagabonds. Despite their reputation as pests of poultry, polecats eat small rodents, frogs, birds and snakes during their nocturnal hunting forays.

Its reputation nonetheless brought the polecat to the brink of extinction through persecution, but it has been undergoing a recent recovery and can be found in rural Wales and parts of England, spreading eastwards, and one was caught by a trail camera last summer at Wells Farm, having also been spotted there three years earlier!

Fields of gold

With their delicate pinky-purple petals, vibrant yellow stamens and deep-orange stigmas, crocuses are one of our prettiest spring flowers. The stigmas of some species are also the source of spice saffron, which is often more expensive than gold.

In this country, the best display of wild crocuses happens to be at our Inkpen Crocus Field reserve in West Berkshire: each February the crocus field hosts tens of thousands of blooms which can last through to April.

Feeding finch flocks

Over winter, small birds like goldfinches form roving flocks that forage together. The bold red mask, golden back, and bright yellow wings of the goldfinch make it one of our most striking birds. If the weather stays cold you can see large flocks of up to 100 birds (their collective name is a ‘charm’) sweeping over farmland such as our Wells Farm reserve near Little Milton but, as the weather warms, these groups break up as individuals start breeding.

Roving redpolls

As you watch the roving goldfinch flocks, keep a look out for little brown birds with crimson caps – you could well discover redpolls in the mix. These distinctive finches are less common across our counties during the summer, as they primarily breed in the north and west of the UK, but in winter they will forms flocks – often with goldfinches and siskins – to feed on seeds and invertebrates in tall trees, especially birch, alder and larch. 

However, these small birds can cause a big headache for birders and taxonomists. Having once been separated out into three distinct species – lesser, common and arctic – in 2024 they were lumped together again as simply ‘redpolls’. Perhaps it’s easiest to look past the name and delight in these avian acrobats as they dangle from alder cones, foraging for food.

What you can do for wildlife in January