SPRING 



In marked contrast with the starling's disjointed utterances 

 is the fluent and almost interminate song of the sedge- 

 warbler, which reaches its height in May, though it is heard 

 from mid-April till far on in July, or even August. The 

 sedge-warbler's personal contribution to its song consists of 

 a hurried insistent babble of sweet and harsh notes con- 

 fusedly mixed. We hear 

 it poured out among the 

 sedges and willows of the 

 waterside with an intensity 

 and volume which make it 

 conspicuous in any com- 

 pany. When the sedge- 

 warbler first arrives there is 

 little trace of an imitative 

 admixture in its song ; in 

 April and early May we 

 have its own bitter-sweet 

 mixture unadulterated. But 

 as the season goes on it 

 picks up the commonest 

 cries of the waterside, and 

 when the nights grow warm 

 it pours out the characteris- 

 tic notes of day in the dark- 

 ness. The ' Pink, pink' of the chaffinch is one of the most 

 usual foreign elements in the sedge-warbler's song, and it 

 seems to have a natural sympathy for the scurrilous bicker- 

 ing and chirping of the sparrows that haunt the streamside 

 willows near towns and villages. A less familiar mocking- 

 bird is the wheatear. In April or early May on the downs 

 it is a fascinating sight to see a cock wheatear flitting from 

 one tussock or juniper stem to another, with wings half 



SEDGE-WARBLER 



