Bird Number 28 – ChiffChaff

A nice, happy thing happened today, I had a new bird visitor to the garden. Bird visitor number 28, a new addition to the list. A chiffChaff.

It’s admittedly not a very glamorous looking bird, nor is it very rare. There are lots of them around, particularly in park hedgerows in the Summer months, but it is certainly the first one I have spotted in my garden.

Today it was a single bird bouncing around the bushes, present for only 10 minutes of so but I got a nice look.

It is another one of those small boring birds with an interesting story. They are only around the size of a blue tit size but they migrate a long way. They generally come North for the Summer and migrate south and west for the Winter, down to the Mediterranean, which is a long trip for a small bird. A few do spend the Winter here, probably more now due to our warming weather, but you’ll still mainly see them in the Summer.

They are quite hard to spot but relatively easy to hear and they are named after their song, a two syllabule call, Chiff – Chaff. It’s that obvious.

So listen out for them, especially now, as they are already on their way back for the summer.