Williamson's weekly nature notes - jan 27

Mind you, they won't always be as obvious as shown. They skulk about deep inside the gorse shadows like mice and all that glossy copper colour on the chest and the shiny gun-metal blue on the back which the artist has so lovingly recreated is hardly ever visible except to the patient birder: he or she who is capable of keeping still for an hour without giving themselves away. But, boy, is that worth the effort.

I am not a very good and patient birder but when really inspired I can resemble a mossy tree trunk with minutes dissolving into hours.

That did happen when I spotted my first ever Dartford warbler on the downs about Eastbourne.

A gorse covered nature reserve held two or three pairs of the rarities and one spring day with skylarks becoming invisible overhead as they climbed up their song ropes I heard a curious rattling chatter coming from inside a gorse bush. Could it be a whitethroat warbler with a problem thought I?

I had never heard anything like it. Then the song stopped dead and, fascinated, I too kept dead still while the minutes floated away into that lovely bounty-bar coconut scent that gorse flowers give off in the heat of a spring day.

The bird was still there because once or twice it gave the rapid tak-tak-tak note that football rattles used to make.

That sounded rather like a black-cap warbler with a problem. I hung on to the ant-heap I was sitting upon, glad that the inmates were yellow-hill ants and not the red variety.

All at once the hidden mouse/whitethroat/blackcap appeared like a clown right in front of my eyes all amid the glowing yellow flowers and sang.

No mistaking him. He gave one burst and again disappeared into the netherworld. I was lucky because I have since learned they only sing for about three days before each brood of eggs.

Down in the New Forest the RSPB have been feeding mealworms to their Dartfords but others won't be so lucky. After the 1962/3 winter numbers fell from nearly 500 pairs in the UK to only 11 pairs. It took them ten years to build numbers back again.

There were several pairs in Sussex again last year at places like Iping Common, Heyshott, Ambersham, and Ashdown Forest and birders will be out already checking to see how many have survived the frosts.