Willow Warblers on Trendlebere Down, my 1970s nature notebooks and Tunnicliffe’s Brooke Bond Bird Portraits
It’s a beautiful day up on Trendlebere Down, an area of heathland on the east of Dartmoor in Devon. There’s a lilting song coming from the top of a tree. It’s a tiny yellow bird; a Warbler. It can’t be a Chiffchaff with that song. It must be a Willow Warbler:
![Willow Warbler - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Hall-of-Einar-1094.jpg)
Back home I look for the Willow Warbler in Bird Portraits by Charles Tunnicliffe in the small album of Brooke Bond tea cards, originally from 1957:
![Tunnicliffe's Bird Portraits - The Hall of Einar](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Tunnicliffes-Bird-Portraits-The-Hall-of-Einar-4972-300x225.jpg)
It captures their character perfectly:
![Brooke Bond - Bird Portraits - Charles Tunnicliffe](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Brooke-Bond-Bird-Portraits-5011.jpg)
I love the phrase “Joyous descending trill.”
Back in 1976 I noted seeing one in my childhood nature notebooks:
![Willow Warbler - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) 2016 David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Willow-Warbler-The-Hall-of-Einar-photograph-c-2016-David-Bailey-not-the.jpg)
They are such dainty birds.
Looking through my nature notebooks I find this entry from 1977 about the Willow Warbler, with my pencil crayon drawing:
![Willow Warbler - The Hall of Einar - (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Willow-Warbler-The-Hall-of-Einar.jpg)
It was 15 April 1977 when I saw a Willow Warbler in the apple tree which grew my parents planted in our back garden, from an apple seed, when I was born. It’s not a bad drawing for a child. Here’s my equivalent digital photograph from 2018:
![Willow Warbler - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)](https://www.thehallofeinar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Hall-of-Einar-1233.jpg)
It’s taken me half an hour to get this close to this Willow Warbler. It’s time to just stand in the middle of the heath and enjoy its joyous descending trill.