Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
Only a very few days since it does not seem a week there was a chiffchaff calling in a copse as merrily as in the spring. This little bird is the first, or very nearly the first, to come in the spring, and one of the last to go as autumn approaches.
I have not generally thought it necessary to point out these changes, but in this instance it seemed necessary to do so, as in the former edition of 'Yarrell' the Chiffchaff was called by the name Sylvia rufa, and this might possibly have caused some confusion unless the change had been pointed out.
On one occasion the Willow-Warbler may be the aggressor, on another the Chiffchaff, and at times it is difficult to say which of the two is responsible for the quarrel. In size and in strength they are equal, and the "will to fight" is as strong in the one as in the other, so that it is seldom, if ever, possible to point to this one as the victor and that one as the vanquished.
And on this occasion the Chiffchaff betrayed all the symptoms which normally precede an attack; it spread its tail, quivered its wings, uttered its high-pitched note rapidly, hopped from twig to twig, or flew restlessly from tree to tree, and seemed to be prevented from attacking only by the number of its opponents.
As the summer wanes they haunt the hawthorn hedge by the roadside, leaving the interior of the copse, and may often be seen on the dry and dusty sward. When chiffchaff and willow-wren first come they remain in the treetops, but in the summer descend into the lower bushes, and, like the nightingales, come out upon the sward by the wayside. Nightingale Copse is also a great favourite with cuckoos.
It is as though the chiffchaff were the first sketch of a willow-wren. The willow-wren is the perfected work of art, with little shades of green added and a voice that, small though its range is, is perhaps the most exquisite that will fill the air till the nightingale arrives.
Métivier, in his 'Dictionary, applies to the Willow Wren of the English. This name, however, is probably equally applicable to the Chiffchaff. CHIFFCHAFF. Phylloscopus collybita, Vieillot. French, "Bee-fin veloce." The Chiffchaff is certainly more common in Guernsey than the Willow Wren.
They manage without me very well; they know their times and seasons not only the civilised rooks, with their libraries of knowledge in their old nests of reference, but the stray things of the hedge and the chiffchaff from over sea in the ash wood. They go on without me.
That the titlarks are singing I know, but not within hearing from here; a dove, though, is audible, and a chiffchaff has twice passed. Afar beyond the oaks at the top of the field dark specks ascend from time to time, and after moving in wide circles for awhile descend again to the corn.
And if we are satisfied that the fighting in the one case is purposive, so, too, must we regard it as having some biological purpose to serve in the other. But the Garden-Warbler is not the only bird that acts as a stimulus to the instinct of the Blackcap; Whitethroats are often attacked, and the Chiffchaff is a source of irritation.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking