Alison’s Poetry Corner Collins Bird Guide (2nd edition) tells me that the Chiffchaff “breeds in woodland, normally open and with tall deciduous trees and moderate scrub layer” and that it “nests on ground in domed cup”. Double checking with Wikipedia (so it must be right) reveals that “the female’s nest is built on or near the ground in a concealed site in brambles, nettles or other dense low vegetation. The domed nest has a side entrance, and is constructed from coarse plant material such as dead leaves and grass, with finer material used on the interior before the addition of a lining of feathers”. So when was such precise knowledge about the breeding behaviour of this small bird first recorded? John Clare’s observations from 200 years ago don’t entirely match the above - but then he was a poet and probably not only using his observations about this bird to record ornithological details.
Photo: Bill Baston
John Clare (1793-1864) was an English nature poet and the son of a farm labourer. His poetry was re-discovered in the late 20th Century and he is now considered to be among the most important 19th Century poets. His biographer Jonathan Bate supports this view when he argues that Clare was “the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self”. Clare had little formal education, and wrote in a Northamptonshire dialect (from which comes the title: ‘The Pettichap’s Nest’). Originally he used little punctuation in his poems but later publishers felt it too difficult to follow, so inserted some. I don’t know if the punctuation and vocabulary in this version of the poem are his or a later addition but I think it’s a pleasing version.
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THE HAR R I ER – S u mme r 2 0 1 6
