We went up to Devil's Dyke on the bus past houses that got more opulent and futuristic, whose gates got more and more threatening, the higher we went. We went to see the spring and to hear it. We went left along the ridge, down and along, with Sussex spread out below us.
Chaffinches were the first to be heard and soon we managed to spot a few, fluffy with winter fat, in the bare trees. As Rose says, this is best time for spotting birds because they are beginning to sing their whereabouts and the trees don't have any leaves to conceal them.
We also heard wrens, robins, great tits, blue tits, skylarks and a great spotted woodpecker hammering on a tree. Just below the woodpecker a little bird hopped into view. We wondered aloud what it was and then it called out its name: chiffchaff.
Usually you can hear the chiffchaff but you can rarely spot it, partly because it's so small and indistinctive, kind of light leaf colour, but this time both sight and sound converged for us. He stood on a branch and as he chiffchaffed he turned round and round, projecting his call to as many females as possible. His legs were like twigs.
Here you can hear him, and possibly see him, but I don't think so:
Here you CAN see him as a speck in the trees, right in the centre of the picture:
Wild flowers seen: Dog Violet, Celandine, White Dog Violet?
Other springlike things: butterflies chasing each other, lone bees, late sunlight, hot-cross buns I made, unidentified white tree blossom, magnolia trees in the gardens of the rich on Dyke road, fragrant evening
Here is a good picture (someone else's) of a chiffchaff:
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