Sound of the Summer

One of the first of the Leaf Warblers to arrive back in the UK from sub Saharan Africa, this little fellow (it's 10cm long from tip of beak to tip of tail and weighs 10grams) is a Willow Warbler, it's also known locally in the West Riding of Yorkshire as a Feather Poke, Peggy, Willow Sparrow or my favourite, in Worcestershire they sometimes call it a Grass Mumruffin.

They're difficult to tell apart from the Chiff Chaff (look out for later blips), but unlike the chiff chaff, it does have a lovely song, it sounds like a waterfall set to music. Thomas Coward described the song as "a tender delicious warble with a dying fall... it mounts up round and full, then runs down the scale , and expires upon the air in a gentle murmur." Not a bad description considering it was from an academic paper.