10 warblers before breakfast
A couple of Saturdays ago - it was the perfect late spring morning - not a cloud in the sky - not a breath of wind.
I took Lily, our spaniel around our garden for her morning constitutional, when out of the top corner of the paddock hedge a lesser whitethroat sang its low warble before letting rip with crescendo like a loud wooden rattle.
Lily knew the score, it was early Saturday and she sulked knowing that she was banned from joining me on the Patch.
On arrival I was met by a singing chiffchaff - the ‘Six Nations’ warbler, as I call it - as it always arrives to our shores by the end of the Six Nations rugby tournament, the tournament that starts in the winter and finishes in the spring.
This was followed by a blackcap, sulking from deep within a willow, singing its fluty warble, slow to start, then increasing in speed and volume - quite beautiful, if not quite as brilliant as the nightingale - but let’s be honest, nothing comes close to a nightingale.
A garden warbler sang from the neighbouring tree - a very similar song to the blackcap, and if I hadn’t seen it, I probably would have thought it another blackcap, however, I saw the small brown bird in full flow - longer phrases, a bit more ‘skylarky’ with a little less of a forceful finish than the blackcap.
Ahead, I could hear a Willow Warbler from the top of a silver birch, ‘such a short sweet lilting, whistling cadence, descending overall’ (so the book says) - when I hear a willow warbler I can only think of summer in Scottish glens where these little olive-coloured warblers abound.
Out in the reed-beds, I could hear the low slurred ‘krrrr’ coming from the mouse-like reed warbler. I spotted it darting for cover into dense reeds. Its rhythmic and repetitive phrases repeating over and over before disappearing to a muffled grunt.
Walking down towards the end of the birch avenue I thought I heard a different sound a bit like distance radio-interference. I cupped my ears and tried to hone-in through the trees to the field beyond.
There was a common whitethroat sitting singing its scratchety song from the top of a bramble bush, but that was not the chap I was interested in. Somewhere a little further out in the field hidden in a willow copse came the prolonged reeling trill; a mechanical whirring high-pitched sound like an old-fashioned freewheeling bicycle. This could only be a grasshopper warbler, and there he was, sitting low in a scrubby willow, beak wide open pouring out its remarkable song.
Back among the reeds it did not take long to add to my tally, when the energetic, staccato of the sedge warbler came along. Sitting upright on top of a tall clump of reeds - a gulping white throat seemed to be shouting out its song, however what stood out most was its prominent white eye stripe - then up it went - a vertical take off - and into a rising blurry wing flapping song flight, before disappearing into the undergrowth.
It had been a typical walk round the Patch in mid-May - ‘Warbler Central’ - it was simply dripping with warblers - then it came, the finale, the banger, big boy, the Cetti’s - boom! What a cracking call.
I caught just a fleeting glimpse of the dumpy chocolate brown bird, which is more than I normally get. Described as an explosive outburst of bubbling notes, often provoked by disturbance - a squeal from a hidden water rail quite often kicks off a Cetti’s, and reassuring to know that when autumn and winters returns to the Patch, and all these wonderful warblers will have gone, the Cetti’s warbler will be the only one who will stay to brighten my morning walk when the reed beds are a good deal quieter.
Sedge Warbler