Spring Migrants at Grizedale: Pied Flycatchers in May

25 April 2026

Pied flycatcher

The pied flycatcher arrives in late April. The male comes first, establishes a territory around a nest hole or nest box, and sings continuously from the tree tops for two to three weeks before the female arrives. The song is a rapid, varied warbling delivered from high in the oak canopy. The male is unmistakeable: clean black-and-white, with a white forehead patch.

Grizedale's nest box scheme has provided nest sites throughout the woodland for decades. The RSPB nest box trail at Haweswater (CA10 2LX) is specifically designed for pied flycatcher watching, but Grizedale's oak woodland edge holds birds too, particularly in the mature sessile oak areas of the forest edges.

Female pied flycatchers arrive a week to two weeks after the males. Watch for the more discreet brown-and-white female investigating nest boxes in early May.

Redstart and wood warbler

Redstarts arrive slightly earlier than pied flycatchers — the first males can appear in late April in a good year. The male is one of the most beautiful British birds: slate-grey back, black face, russet-orange breast and tail. The tail shivers constantly. They sing from high, open perches in the woodland canopy.

The wood warbler arrives last of the three, often in the first week of May. Its habitat requirements are more specific — open-canopied sessile oak woodland with a clear woodland floor. The song is one of the great bird sounds of the British uplands: a vibrating, accelerating trill that drops into a descending liquid call. Once you know it you hear it everywhere in the right woodland in May.

How to find them

Walk early. The period from dawn to 9am in early May is when the migrants are at their most vocal. The woodland floor is still relatively open before the bracken comes up fully, giving better visibility. Stand quietly at the edge of an open woodland area and listen. If you hear a fast, varied warbling from the canopy, it is likely a pied flycatcher. A liquid, descending call repeated with a vibrating trill is a wood warbler.

The Grizedale Ridding Wood Trail passes through good migrant habitat. The transition zone between the conifer plantation and the remnant broadleaf woodland on the valley sides holds pied flycatchers and redstarts regularly in May.