scratchy songs

Far be it for me to cavil

but Africa's quite far to travel 

from, to sing so few, such curs'ry notes,

offhandedly, as the whitethroat's

....it's pouring down and my internet tethering allowance has run out for the month, so I scurried damply to the library and sit here steaming gently. Having moved the boat yesterday, I am now moored where sedge warblers spent all night bickering, and the whitethroat is at it hammer and tongs. It seems the season for scratchy songs now - the yellowhammer, complaining of its little bit of bread and no cheese is taunted by the reed warbler's sixty species of cheeses.