This bird’s song is sublimely evocative for me. Hearing it, anywhere, even sitting here at my computer, takes me immediately back to the Welsh oakwood on the RSPB Dinas nature reserve. Yes there are Redstarts, Pied Flycatchers, Tree Pipits there but the song of the Wood Warbler is wonderful.
And the bird, if you can see it, throws itself into its song.
The song consists of a purring trill but then, occasionally there is also a high-pitched piping sound.
Here are examples from Berlin (wait for the piping at the end):
… and from Sweden (lots of trills and some piping nearer the end than the beginning) ;
…and this one from Devon, UK:
Can you smell the petrichor after a shower and almost hear the water dripping off the leaves of the oak trees as these birds sing? I can.
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Seven singing on the estate last year, none so far this time, having visited most of sites this week for Goshawk.
They seem mainly to be in mixed woods now, happy in conifer with Birch and a few others mixed in, a song to make a walk worthwhile certainly.
I like the petrichor of Birch woods, and dusty tracks after rain.
In Sweden its nickname is “Silver Slanten” (silver coin) as the song can be likened to a small silver coin such as an old-fashioned three-penny piece slowly spinning down on a porcelain saucer.