Chiffchaff

I was walking down a forest track this morning when I was stopped by the call of a chiffchaff. I associate calling chiffchaffs, a small warbler, with spring, when they arrive from North Africa to breed here, so I did not expect to hear it calling so lustily on a cold September day - yes, we've had our two-day ration of late summer, the temperature outside at the moment being 12C, with a chill wind blowing, and a sky which is a dismal, grey overcast!

So, to check it was a chiffchaff - there was little hope of seeing it in the thick forestry - I deployed the wonderful Merlin Bird ID app which told me that....

....not only was there a chiffchaff calling but also a firecrest.

I've only photographed a firecrest once, and that wasn't a great success, so I stood, listening to bird calls and trying to work out which was the firecrest, without any luck. However, in that time I enjoyed being thoroughly scolded by a wren, and being talked at by the very persistent robin which the app had found.

All this made me realise that, with a long winter coming up, I really do need to learn my bird songs. That way, a walk through these very dense woods would become so much more interesting.