The whitethroat expresses both acacia thorn and bramble

Claxton, Norfolk The song is as lowly and modest as the bush from which it emerges. It inhabits our spring subliminally

I can tell the weather by the St Mark's flies, because, as they sail over the brambles, their fore-legs dangle together and are held so that they face directly into the oncoming breeze and fractionally ahead of the body. Rather like a boat's keel, those legs keep the fly true in relation to the airstream, and they now point southwest.

Those warm winds brought the summer migrants streaming home. As I walk down the beck the whitethroats sing at intervals. They are lithe creatures, adept at threading mouse-like through spiked vegetation. Two tiny extravagances of plumage are the ginger patches mainly in two wing feathers and a white powder puff at the throat, which swells up when they sing.