The Chiffchaff is, with the exception of the hardy Wheatear, the first feathered wanderer to return to us in the spring, and is eagerly looked, or rather listened, for by naturalists because its welcome notes stand in their calendar as January 1 does to the rest of the world—the beginning of a New Year—not of days, weeks, and months, but of awakening life, activity, and joy. It arrives in March and departs again in October, some individuals having the hardihood to stay even through the winter in the mild south-western parts of England.
NEST AND EGGS OF CHIFFCHAFF.
This species breeds generally throughout the southern and midland parts of England, but it is not common in the northern counties or in Scotland. It is met with in all suitable districts of Wales and Ireland, but is everywhere more or less local.
Shady woods, well-timbered dells, and stream-sides with plenty of matured trees clustering round are beloved haunts of the Chiffchaff, which builds its nest on or near the ground amongst tall grass tangled with brambles and small bushes, hedge and ditch banks, and sometimes in ivy growing against trees and walls. The structure is oval, domed, and has an entrance hole in the side. It is made of dead grass, withered leaves, and moss—sometimes a few fern fronds are employed—and is lined with hair and feathers.
The eggs, numbering from five to seven, are white, sparingly spotted with dark purplish-brown.
It is by no means an easy matter for the inexperienced ornithologist to distinguish the Chiffchaff from the Willow Wren, although the species under notice is a trifle smaller and duller in colour.
Its song, if two oft-repeated notes can be dignified by such a name, is, however, quite unique and impossible to confuse with that of any other British bird. The two notes sound something like chiff chaff or chip chop, and are uttered four or five times in succession as the bird hunts from bough to bough and tree to tree after its insect food.
To some people it is said to grow exceedingly wearisome, but to me it always sounds such a part of the pleasant things of spring that it never palls.
The call note sounds something like tweet or wheet, and the alarm cry like whooid or whooit.