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Why upland birds are worth a second look

Most of us head for the hills for the view, the weather and the pull of a summit. But once you start noticing the birds, a familiar ridge becomes a much richer place. A croak from somewhere above a crag, a small brown bird parachuting down over the heather, a flash of white on a black breast in a gully: these details tell you where you are and what time of year it is. You do not need expensive kit. Three species will carry you a long way on a British fell walk — the raven, the ring ouzel and the meadow pipit — and each is easier to pin down by voice and outline than by colour.

The raven: big, black and full of character

Ravens are roughly buzzard-sized, which is why they are so often misidentified at distance. Look for a heavy black bird with a wedge-shaped tail, long pointed wings and a slow, deliberate wingbeat broken by long glides. A buzzard holds its wings in a shallow V and shows a rounded tail; a raven soars on flat wings and looks like a flying cross from directly below. Carrion crows are smaller again, with a fan-shaped tail and a flat, nasal "caw".

The voice settles it. A raven's call is a deep, resonant "kronk" or "prruk" that carries for miles on a still day, quite unlike the thin caw of a crow. Listen too for the knock and rush of wings in early spring, when pairs tumble and half-roll in display flights above the crags. Pairs stay together all year, so if you hear one raven, wait — there is very often a second nearby.

The ring ouzel: the fell's secretive blackbird

Ring ouzels are the fell walker's reward for looking properly at steep ground. A male looks like a blackbird that has been out in bad weather: sooty black, with a bold white crescent across the breast and a pale silvery-grey panel on each wing. Females are browner, with a weaker bib, but the wing panel still shows. They are shy and quick to dive into cover, so a glimpse is often all you get.

Their haunts are specific: steep-sided gullies, scree, crag edges and heathery moorland with scattered trees or berry bushes, usually above about 250 metres. The Pennines, north Wales, the Southern Uplands, the Highlands, Dartmoor and Exmoor all hold breeding birds. They arrive from late March and leave by September.

Learn the call and you will find more of them: a hard, scolding "tack-tack-tack" or "chack", like a blackbird but sharper and more agitated, often given from a boulder or an isolated rowan. The song is a soft, mournful, fluting phrase.

The meadow pipit: the soundtrack of the open fell

Meadow pipits are small, streaky brown and almost everywhere on open ground, which makes them easy to dismiss and worth getting right. Look for a slim bill, pale legs, a pale stripe above the eye and a long hind claw. When one flies, watch for the white outer tail feathers — a useful clue when you have only a second or two.

The song flight is the giveaway. A pipit rises from the ground, climbs 20 or 30 metres, delivers a run of thin "sip-sip-sip" notes, then parachutes back down with a "seea-seea-seea". Once you know that sound you will hear it on almost every walk between March and August. The alarm call is a sharp "tsip-tsip". Pipits perch on fence posts, stones and low bushes, and usually drop straight to the ground rather than flying far.

Respecting nesting season on the high ground

Upland birds nest on the ground or on ledges, often in exactly the places we like to walk. The main breeding season runs from mid-March to the end of July, with some species still feeding young into August. Ring ouzels are the sensitive one: they are protected against intentional or reckless disturbance at the nest, so give crags, gullies and scree a wide berth in spring and early summer.

The birds will tell you if you are too close. Persistent alarm calling, a bird flitting around you, or a distraction display — running along the ground with wings drooping like a wounded animal — all mean you are near a nest. The right response is to stop, retreat the way you came and take a different line.

• Keep to paths on popular crag edges between March and July.
• Keep dogs close, ideally on a lead, anywhere near gullies and scree.
• Avoid lingering at crag tops, boulder fields and isolated trees where birds are calling.
• Use binoculars to watch from a distance rather than walking in for a better view.

Habits that sharpen your identification

Silhouette and sound do most of the work. Scan ridge lines, crags and fence posts against the sky, where a shape is easier to read than a colour. Walk into the wind when you can, so calls carry towards you rather than away, and pause every so often — most upland birds give themselves away in the first minute after you stop moving. Early morning is best, but a windy afternoon will still produce ravens and pipits.

Keeping a few notes — date, rough location, what you heard and saw — turns a pleasant walk into something more useful for anyone recording upland wildlife. And it is a simple pleasure: the same hill, walked a dozen times, never quite sounding the same twice.