Of corn blobs and goggle-eyed plovers

AMONG the diverse range of British bird habitats, the largest is what you can broadly call farmland. Its mix of arable fields, sown and natural grasslands, moors, hedges, ditches, orchards and small woods accounts for about 71% of the land area. It is, therefore, inevitable that the species that shelter, feed and nest within it are among the most closely monitored, in order to maintain an overall sense of the health of our avian populations.

Some species are more obviously farmland birds than others. The robin nests in farm scrub, but is equally associated with gardens, as is the wren, with its bright, perky song that can be heard almost anywhere. Goldfinches, since they discovered a taste for the sunflower seeds kindly souls put out in feeders, have lost something of their old ‘birds of the open fields’ aura. The following 10