Lesser Spots are most active in March and April, calling, drumming and displaying. So a sunny morning now is the best time to find them.
So far this year LesserSpotNet volunteers have recorded LSW in Dartmoor and Exmoor, The Quantocks, New Forest, West and East Sussex, North Kent Blean woods complex, Essex, Berkshire, Derbyshire, the Wyre Forest and more.
Kent Ornithological Society are carrying out a county wide Lesser Spot survey with good results so far, see their website for more details.

In an exciting development this year passive acoustic monitoring is being used to record presence/absence of Lesser Spots in woodlands with suitable habitat. Sound recorders (Wildlife Acoustics Songmeter Mini 2) record from dawn to dusk for three or four days, see photo of one in position. The resulting spectrograms are analysed to pick up the characteristic calling and drumming of Lesser Spots. The BTO are developing an automatic analysis tool which should be available soon as part of their Acoustic Pipeline.
Hampshire and Kent Ornithological Societies and some volunteers in Sussex are deploying passive acoustic recorders and have proved presence of LSW in several woodlands where standard survey techniques have not recorded them recently. The National Trust and Forestry England are also trying out the method.
Find us on our new BlueSky account @LesserSpotNet.bsky.social. Thanks to everyone who has sent records and information so far, please keep them coming.