Nature notes: Britain’s early summer visitors

March is a story of early summer visitors arriving in Britain. After the wheatears, many more of which are now appearing in grassy places in the south-west, and the sand martins hawking flies over rivers, the latest one to show up is the little ringed plover. This is a small wader that nests in such places as sandy islands in flooded gravel pits, and in Wales sometimes beside rivers. Some have already been seen in the Midlands, and more will doubtless follow soon in other parts of the country. They are brown above, white beneath, with a black band round the breast and two black lines across the forehead. Standing still, they may not be easy to see, but they become noticeable when they run about rapidly on the mud or sand, darting this way and that, or tilting nimbly over to one side, when they see some insect to pick up and eat. Once the females join the males at a nesting-site, there are many swift chases low over the water, or butterfly-like display flights with slow wing-beats. They are relatively new birds in Britain. They first nested here in 1938, and there are now more than a thousand breeding pairs each year.