Tag Archives: Garden Warbler

Ian Alexander’s Amazing Audio Guide to British Warblers

Today I noted down in my nature diary “Sedge – Cetti’s – Blackcap – Chiffchaff – Whitethroat.” I didn’t see any of them: but I’m sure all of them were there, because I heard them unambiguously.

If you think that would be a nice thing to do, but utterly impossible for you, being a city-dweller with cloth ears, let me reassure you: it’s really not difficult. Have you ever been in a noisy party where someone suddenly said your name? You picked out the sound right away, and looked straight at where it came from, didn’t you. In other words, your hearing, and the auditory processing part of your brain, is perfectly adapted to picking out sound signatures from a jumble of other stuff  – engineers call it noise, and who are we to disagree  – without even thinking about it. It’s a wonderful ability, and it has obvious survival value.

So, to warblers. A lot of small, inconspicuous LBBs (yeah, little brown birds) that mainly lurk about deep inside bushes: but with one sharply distinguishing feature – you guessed it, their song. Each species takes good care to avoid hybridising with other species, probably producing uselessly infertile offspring, by announcing its identity to all and sundry. Males tell other males to push off; and they tell females where they are, what species they are, and (so I’m told) how wonderfully fit they are, just by singing in what the females judge is the right way.

So what is the right way? How, in other words, do these warblers sound? Ok, I lied about the audio, there’s no tape or what have you here. But, in simple words, here’s how to tell them apart.

Let’s start with the easiest one. The Chiffchaff just says his name, over and over and over again. Chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff… It’s a fairly high, lisping sort of song on, yes, exactly two notes. If you’re a registered European you may prefer to call it Zilp-zalp-zilp-zalp-zilp-zalp…. — it’s the same thing. The call is pretty loud and clear; if you know the Great Tit’s insistent Teacher-Teacher-Teacher call from park or garden, well, it’s not as harsh as that. The Chiffchaff can be heard almost anywhere there are a good number of trees and bushes; there are plenty in parks and by the river.

The warbler that looks almost exactly like the Chiffchaff is the Willow Warbler. It doesn’t frequent willows. It seems to be getting scarcer, and it likes more secluded bushy areas than the Chiffchaff. The song is a unique series of descending phrases, lisping from high to low like a pianist carefully practising his scales every morning: swieeuo(high)-swieeuo-swieeuo-swieeuo-swieeuo-swieeuo(low). It never varies.

The Blackcap is one of the commonest of our warblers. It sings from any reasonably thick patch of bushes: you need a pretty large garden to get Blackcaps, but they’re in every park and reserve. It’s a bit tricky to describe the Blackcap’s song, because he always improvises, like a jazz musician doing a gig. However, he is a bit of an opera meister, a tenor constantly worrying about his voice. So he goes like this:  Ahem. La, la. Do re mi fa. Ahem. Hrrm. La la la. Ah, let me see. Yes. Aaaaaa–La Dolce Vita — Voce di Tenore – si – Aaaaaa!  In short, the Blackcap starts rather hesitantly, stumbles a bit, warms up, sings a few fine fluty notes — and stops abruptly.  Another way of putting it is the traditional “Blackcap’s brief”, but he’s not always quite that short.

The singer you might confuse with the Blackcap is the Garden Warbler. He’s distinctly less common, and requires more green space, but you have a good chance of hearing him in May. The Garden Warbler’s song is immediately recognisable as rather good. Even if you don’t bother with classical music much, you can at once hear that this is someone with a well-trained voice, perfectly modulated, even, rich, rapid, full of notes, expressive. I don’t want to spoil this by saying that the voice doesn’t do terribly much, but it’s true: the Garden Warbler’s song is always somewhat of a piece. It can go on for quite a while, sometimes tens of seconds without a break (excellent breath control), but there are no sudden leaps, no sharp highs or lows, no discordant notes. It’s Radio 3 not trying too hard in between major concerts.

Quite the opposite is the Sedge Warbler. I can give you a pretty sharp clue as to where you’ll find him singing: in a patch of reeds, certainly near water. He doesn’t need much room: at the Wetland Centre, one sings from a tiny reedbed right in front of a hide, and it’s amusing to watch people trying to locate him even as he sings his heart out. The Sedge Warbler’s song is REALLY discordant. Think modern classical and then some. Schoenberg and Cage rolled into one. Charr-charr-charr (so far so good) SQUEAK Chirp Weeaaiourgh – SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK chirp chirp charr-charr-charr- getting used to this – charr-charr-charr SQUEAK hic! SQUAWK SQUNK got you there charr-charr-charr… and so on for ages. I promise you’ll recognise him straight away.

If we’re into scratchy, the Whitethroat is the start. He’s a beautiful bird and if you’re quiet and come out early before the hordes you’re quite likely to see him atop a tall thorn bush, singing at the top of his voice. He prefers rather isolated bushes in patches of scruffy scrubland. He is reddish brown with a conspicuous fluffy white throat, like an elegant eighteenth-century Mr Darcy with a tailcoat and a white silk neckerchief. Unfortunately for the romantic appearance, Mr D really can’t sing too well, nor for very long. Squeaky-squawky-scritch-scratch. Scrape. Scritchy-scratchy.  Honestly, that’s about it. Occasionally if you’re very lucky you get a little bit of tune, but mostly there aren’t many musical notes in it at all.

OK, the Cetti’s. He isn’t nearly as Italian as his name; in fact, you can find him in reedbeds and beside lakes pretty much all year. He is a real skulker, so I hardly need to describe him, other than to say he sings from quite low down in thick waterside bushes. If you see him at all, it will be a quick glimpse of a medium-dark brown bird with a rounded tail, vanishing into a bush. To compensate, he has a REALLY LOUD song with the pattern Witchipitipit, Witchipitipit. Well, that’s the polite phonetic version. If I remember rightly, it was Simon Barnes in his magnificently naughty How to be a bad birdwatcher (Short Books, 2004; Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk) who voiced the Cetti’s as Me! Cetti’s! If you don’t like it, you can Fuck Off! You’ll definitely recognise him when you hear him, or he’ll nut you one. And once you know his song, you’ll be surprised how widespread he is.

I could do the Lesser Whitethroat for you too, and the Reed Warbler, but I expect you’ve had quite enough for one go. But feel free to ask me if you’re curious.

Seven Sea Swallows Don’t Make a Summer …

Down at Wraysbury, I wondered what I might see now the spring migration is well and truly under way. Last year there was a single Cuckoo, a rare treat. And perhaps there would be a good number of warblers already.

The winter ducks had all vanished from the lakes, all bar a pair of shy Gadwall right at the back. There were indeed quite a few warblers about – Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Cetti’s, Whitethroats, Garden Warblers and one or two Willow Warblers, all singing lustily. I listened out for a Sedge Warbler to make it Seven but couldn’t find one. Still, not bad going.

But over the lake there was a high call: Pik! Cheer! Cheeri-Cheeri-Cheeri-Cheer! A pair of Common Terns, the first of the year: graceful white ‘sea swallows’, marvellously buoyant in flight. But no – there were two pairs .. no, five birds … no, seven in all. They wheeled and shrieked high above, swooped and delicately took insects from the water surface. Comically, one or two of the Black-Headed Gulls tried to do the same: they looked like tubby Sunday footballers trying gamely to keep up with their mates, flapping heavily, looking rotund and clumsy – yet, these are the same birds that gracefully wheel about the tourists at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, skilfully catching pieces of bread tossed into the air at any speed, any angle, any distance. It’s just that the terns are seven times more agile. Their forked tails divide into streamers as long as the rest of the tail; their wings almost pure white below, smooth ash-grey above. Do they make a summer? Almost.

Also swooping over the water was one Swallow, the first of the year for me; and about eight House Martins were hunting above the treetops. Some Alder Flies flew past; perhaps they are emerging from the water, providing a feast for the terns.

One green female Banded Demoiselle perched on some nettles; she too is the first of her kind – indeed, the first dragonfly of any kind – for me this year. And a solitary Greylag goose stood in the shallows, an unusual sight here.

Horses and Jackdaws at Wraysbury
Horses and Jackdaws at Wraysbury

Around the horses on the green grassy hill that used to be the dump, a flock of Jackdaws with some Carrion Crows, benefiting from the insects around the horses; and a second flock, more of a surprise, of Stock Doves. They are notoriously under-reported, people just assuming they are Feral Pigeons or Wood Pigeons without looking to check. They all had the same pattern, and none of them had white wing flashes.

Walking down to the road, the narrow path was carpeted with small teardrop-shaped white petals: Hawthorn flowers, May blossom.

A Six Warbler Walk… First of the Year

A high pressure zone is bringing bright and mainly sunny weather to Britain, but as it’s not overhead it is also bringing quite a cold breeze. Down at Wraysbury Lakes, all the winter ducks have left, with just Tufted, Mallard and a pair of Gadwall remaining. Two Great Crested Grebes wandered around each other, not quite getting into a courtship dance.

Things were more exciting on the birdsong front. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs sang sweetly all over. A Cetti’s sang very loud, very close by the lakeside as always, first in front … I stalked up very quietly … and then behind me. Invisible, the skulker. In the thicker scrub, several Whitethroats sang their scratchy short song, the first this year; and at least three Willow Warblers sang their descending scales, also the first of the year. And, briefly, one Garden Warbler gave me a burst of his even, musical tunefulness. There’s often a Sedge Warbler near the river but not apparently today. More song came from the Robins, a Song Thrush, and a Chaffinch or two.

Overhead, a Grey Heron circled upwards towards a Boeing 747-400 and did its best to resemble a soaring stork or crane, quite impressive really with broad, downcurved wings rather like one of those air-filled kites made only of light cloth.

St George's Mushroom
St George’s Mushroom

A small patch of St George’s Mushrooms nestled among the Potentilla leaves by the path; it’s about the only edible mushroom at this time of year, but I don’t pick them, both for conservation reasons and because I’m not keen on their rather mealy taste.

The first Speckled Wood butterflies of the year are in evidence; they are fiercely territorial already, chasing off numerous Peacock butterflies. A few Green-Veined Whites settled, frail and shy, on the thicker herbs.

Ground Ivy
Ground Ivy

Great patches, almost carpets of Ground Ivy, which sounds a lowly herb, but looks glorious among the low-cropped grass, shining in the sunshine. It’s in the Labiate or Mint family, and has pretty rather short toothed leaves, purple-tinged, with attractive blue lipped flowers that are really quite orchid-like if you ignore their long tubes.