Blogger: Steve Rowland, Public Affairs Manager Spring seemed a
long way off last week as I took my lunchtime walk through the
woods, the leaves on the trees were yet to unfurl, the ground
was bare and covered in a mulch of last autumns dead leaves, and
a light, cold wintry rain drizzled down. And yet I realised that
my mind had picked up on the subtle changes in the quality of
light and drawing out of the days. I became aware of a slight
tightness in my ears, an unconscious straining and heightened
alertness to the bird song around me. And I thought that after
more Springs as a birder than I care to remember, my brain was
quietly and unobtrusively saying to my ears to be alert for
couple of unremarkable notes of bird song one up followed
repetitively by another down, up and down in short bursts, from
a bird that takes its name from these two notes of song, the
chiff chaff. (photo below). Naming a bird after the sound it
makes is known as onomatopoeia and two other species that occur
in the UK the cuckoo and t