The Chiffchaff
Uttered His Clear Yet Rather Sad Notes On April 26.
The same morning at
five o'clock there had been a slight snow shower, but it was a sunny day.
On May 1 a stitchwort was in flower, a plant that marks the period
distinctly.
A swift appeared on May 2; I should not consider this late. A
whitethroat was catching insects in the garden on May 6. The cuckoo sang
again on May 8; the same day a Red Admiral butterfly was seen, and the
turtle-dove heard cooing. Next day, the 9th, the cave swallow appeared,
and also the bank martin. With the cooing of the turtledove the spring
migrants are generally complete; a warm summer bird, he is usually the
last, and if the others had not been seen they are probably in the
country somewhere. The chimney swallows had been absent five months all
but five days (last seen November 30), so that reckoning the first and
the last, they may be said to stay in England seven months - much longer
than one would think without taking the dates. Up till April 20 the
hedges seemed as bare as they were in January, a most dreary spectacle of
barren branches, and the great elms gaunt against the sky. After that the
hedges gradually filled with leaf, and were fully coloured when the
turtle-dove began to sing, but still the elms were only just budding, and
but faintly tinted with green.
Chaucer was right in singing of the 'floures' of May notwithstanding the
northern winds and early frosts and December-like character of our Mays.
That the cycle of weather was warmer in his time is probably true, but
still even now, under all the drawbacks of a late and wintry season, his
description is perfectly accurate.
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