THE HEART OF THE COPSE 127 



rather larger and looser nest than the blackcap's neat cup of 

 bents, and usually place it lower and in thicker undergrowth. 

 In nest and life they approximate more closely to the habits 

 of the common whitethroat. The lesser whitethroat builds a 

 slighter nest higher in the bushes, like the blackcap. All 

 these four birds may be found nesting in one part or another 

 of a copse on a good loamy soil. Such a soil is more produc- 

 tive than sand and gravel, and fosters 

 the rich verdure and varied timber 

 which suits their slightly varying tastes. 

 But the garden-warbler is the true copse- 

 bird of the family, and on a warm day 

 in May its sweet and fluent warble is 

 seldom silent among the young green 

 leaves. It often sings hidden in the 

 thicket, but sometimes mounts to the 

 boughs of the oaks as the nightingale 

 does. Blackcaps wander more freely 

 among the upper boughs as they sing ; 

 and the common whitethroat winds rest- 

 lessly among the thorns and herbage. 

 Lesser whitethroats are equally restless 



little birds, but wander higher in the bushes. Blackcaps 

 winter less far south than garden-warblers — some, indeed, 

 spend the winter annually in the south-west of England — and 

 we hear them regularly on the first warm days of May, while 

 the garden-warbler is often a few days later. But the nests 

 of both are common by the middle of the month, when the 

 nesting season is at its height, and the apple-blossom shines 

 pink against the sky. 



In dry gravelly copses the number of nesting birds is 

 more limited, and the species rather different. Flowers and 

 green undergrowth are scarcer ; the ground is covered with 



LESSER WHITETHROAT 



