The lane was a foaming wave of Queen Anne’s lace. At the gate, red campion frothed like a cherryade fountain. The buttercup field shimmered. In a month of grey skies and grim winds, the sun came out. Just when I thought things could not get any better, the whitethroat began to sing in a series of rhythmic, melodious riffs. “The whitethroat’s song is a jumble of unmusical phrases”, the RSPB Handbook of British Birds states drily – surely one of the greatest injustices in ornithology. Suddenly, the warbler lifted from its hiding place in the hawthorn. Rising about as high as a child on a trampoline, it fluttered back down, singing all the while. Again and again, the whitethroat bounced up, showing off its inimitable song flight.It is habitually a skulker in the