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Spring is coming and the Chiffchaffs seem to bring it.Īnd what a gloriously simple and unmistakable song to start the Spring arrivals! It’s a clear and simple song to bring a clear and simple message – Spring is coming!īut there is a slight twist to this tale.
Chiff and fipple review blackbird Patch#
There will probably be a Chiffchaff singing in a wood or patch of scrub near you today, and if not today then tomorrow, or the next day, or very soon. They all sound the same and it’s as easy to see (hear!) why the Chiffchaff is called a Chiffchaff as it is to understand why a Cuckoo is called a Cuckoo. …and here is one from Somerset in May 2017 …and this one was in the Netherlands the day before And as a clarion call for Spring, what could be better than the song of the Chiffchaff? This one was singing in Belgium yesterday Chiffchaffs now arrive back in the UK a good two weeks earlier than they did in the 1970s – so do many other Spring migrants and there is a story to be told about that some time.īut whenever I hear that first Chiffchaff, even on the grottiest day, I know that Spring is unfolding, as it always does, and that sunnier days and over the coming weeks a more or less predictable succession of other summer migrants are on their way back. These years, my aim is to hear a Chiffchaff before the end of the Cheltenham racing festival, about two weeks earlier (sometimes three weeks earlier) and I usually manage it, but not always. I usually did it, but not always – that’s why it was a worthwhile and challenging goal. In fact, my aim was to hear a Chiffchaff before my birthday on 29 March. When I was a lad, birding just south of Bristol, my aim was to hear a Chiffchaff in March rather than let that event slip into April.