Three flavours of warble
Yes, I know you’ve seen it before. This Common Whitethroat, Curruca communis, is singing again in the garden of my friend’s house. We’re house-sitting in Oxfordshire and there’s the song of this warbler scratching and itching its way from the tops of the various garden trees almost all day long.
The RSPB says this about the Common Whitethroat:
It’s a summer visitor and passage migrant, with birds breeding widely, although it avoids urban and mountain areas. It winters in Africa, south of the Sahara.
It’s a bird of twin summers as, during our winter, it’s summer south of the Sahara.
To take a rest from its shouting we take Anna the dog on a walk to Foxburrow Wood. Here’s what the Woodland Trust has to say about Foxburrow Wood:
Foxburrow Wood is a new wood in the early stages of development. The first planting took place in 2010 and the final phase will be complete in early 2014. Foxburrow Wood is owned by the Wychwood Project, a charity that aims to promote landscape and habitat conservation and restoration in area of the historic royal hunting forest of Wychwood.
It’s been a massive success and is growing lush and wild. There we hear the sweeter tones of a Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla.
The RSPB says this about the Blackcap:
Its delightful fluting song has earned it the name ‘northern nightingale’. Although primarily a summer visiting bird from Germany and north-east Europe, Blackcaps are increasingly spending the winter in the UK.
That sounds a bit confusing to me. Our summer breeding birds migrate to southern Europe for winter and are replaced by birds from Central Europe which winter here. In autumn, it’s all change in the Blackcap population. Blackcaps are known for their leap-frog migration pattern, where northern populations migrate much further south and those around the Mediterranean tend to stay where they are. Who can blame them?
Further along the bridleway there’s the familiar ‘song’ of the Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus collybita. I keep being told that the Chiffchaff’s song is two notes, a ‘chiff’ and a ‘chaff’, but I’m convinced that it’s actually a ‘chiff-chaff-chuff-chaff-chiff’ with three notes. Am I imagining it, or so unmusical I can’t detect two notes are the same note?
The RSPB says this about the Chiffchaff:
Chiffchaffs usually (though not always) have dark legs and a pale eye stripe. They’re easily confused for the Willow Warbler which has pale legs and a yellow eye stripe. Listen for the song which gives it its name, no other warbler makes that chiff-chaffing tune.
Chiffchaffs are now widely resident in England. Here are the dark legs and pale eye stripe.
Then we hear the beautiful descending trill of a Willow Warbler and I’m excited about getting a photograph of it to show you its pale legs and describe its song and tell you all about its migratory behaviour.
Unfortunately it flies off.