Birdwatch: garden warblers are losing their scrub habitat

Garden warblers in fact prefer thick scrub, which is dying out in our tidy countryside

Some birds are very well named: such as the cuckoo, treecreeper and song thrush. Others, including Kentish plover, grey wagtail and garden warbler, are almost wilfully misleading.

Garden warblers are, unlike their cousin the blackcap, hardly ever found in gardens. They prefer thick scrub, a transitory habitat that is becoming harder and harder to find in our increasingly tidy countryside.