Males start singing in their territories in late August. The call of the yellowhammer, to my mind, sounds a bit like the opening bars of Beethoven’s fifth symphony, although somewhat dull and repetitive and no where near as inspired. An old Scottish friend of mine has described it as having the rythmn of ‘a–little–bit–of–bread–and–no–cheese’ which requires more than a little imagination to make the words fit the song.
Finding the yellowhammer’s nest is a real challenge. It is usually built very close to the ground in gorse, blackberry, bracken or long grass. It is roughly constructed of grass and small sticks and lined with finer grass, hair, moss wool and feathers.
Between October and mid-February, the yellowhammer may lay up to five whitish–pink eggs covered in fine scribbling brown lines. The female does most of the incubation, the eggs hatching in 12-14 days.
Both parents feed the young and the young birds fledge in about 13 days.
Diet is a mix of insects and seeds from a variety of introduced weeds, grasses clover and cereals.
