ChiffChaff?

For the last couple of weeks a small bird has been appearing on and around the patio usually at lunch time and again in the early evening.  It hops around the plant pots on the patio and amongst the heather and other plants in the beds before flying off to the same corner of the garden.  We wondered if it was nesting in the hedge behind the rhododendron in the top lefthand corner of the garden. . Every time we've seen it we haven't had a camera handy to try and catch an image of it.  We thought it looked like a Chiffchaff.  Looking at the RSPB website it appears that Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers can be easily confused.  Chiffchaffs have darker legs than the Willow Warbler and this bird has dark legs.  

This lunch time imagine our delight when two birds turned up and hopped around the patio happily pecking in pots and cracks between the flagstones.  Paul managed to take a few photos but only one was clear enough to be of use as they were taken through glass with pouring rain outside.  It does look as if there is a pair and that they are nesting not far away.

If we could hear its call we could be absolutely sure it is a Chiffchaff as it is very distinctive.  Here is a link to a short video from the British Trust for Ornithology about both birds.

In my copy of A Country Woman's Journal by Margaret Shaw* her entry for 24th June 1928 reads

Saw a Chiff Chaff for the first time in my life - he was hopping about on the top of the fruit cage and on the pea sticks. 

 

In her book A Year Unfolding.  A Printmaker's View  Angela Harding writes of the Spring Hedgerow.

April brings in blackcaps and the chiffchaff returns; this is another sign of Spring.  High in the branches is the chiffchaff chirping out its name in a short staccato rhythm.
 

The poet John Clare (1793-1864) wrote a poem about the Chiffchaff or 'chippiechap'.

Here is a link to the poem.

* apologies for some reason I wrote Mary Shaw, it's actually Margaret Shaw.