The lapwing's unearthly sounds fill the fields

Sandy, Bedfordshire: Peewit, teeack, chewit " whatever you call it, it sounds like the Clangers

Unearthly sounds have filled the fields lately, breaking frosty silences or cocking a whooping snook at louring skies. The lapwing's voice is the joker in the pack, shooting up and down the scales like a novice twiddling the knobs on a synthesiser. It does not feel grounded in this landscape of puddles, mud slaked over boots, ragged grass margins, finches giving out throwaway chirrups, and the dull ribbed skeleton leftovers of last year's flowers.

Our field-working forebears must have listened daily and tried to capture the distinctive peculiarity of these sounds in words. So much so that Vanellus vanellus may well have more regional names than any other bird. Lancashire's chewit calls to Orkney's teeack, Norfolk's pie-wipe answers Lothian's peasiewheep. I'm a child of the TV generation, and I always think when I hear the birds that the Clangers have landed.