It must be spring

One of the real harbingers of springtime...that chirping sound of the chiffchaff which seems to follow you about everywhere from the hedgerows.

Yesterday Mrs The Millbrooker and I were serenaded by the wee fellows as we walked up Donkey Lane to Tregonhawke Cliff in order to visit Piers "Tea Time" Taylor at his bijou abode.

As it's still pretty early in the season and there's not much greenery about we got a couple of decent glimpses of the olive coloured chaps as they chirruped at the world. Once again the zoom was stretched to breaking point as I caught this one on camera just in the act of taking flight.

Perhaps a slightly better (and certainly more elegant) image of a chiffchaff from Tregonhawke Cliff itself:

After Mrs The Millbrooker had finished discussing all sorts of important business with Mr Tea Time, we ambled gently homeward via Treninnow, pausing only to measure the height of the old RAF buildings to settle a minor dispute in our idle conversation about whether it would be possible to fit two floors into one of them. Mrs The Millbrooker won, although we agreed that you would need to have a slight pitch to the roofline, so perhaps it was a draw.

One more decent bird sighting followed as we approached Fourlanesend..sadly the trusty zoom wasn't quite up to the job, but I did catch a female buzzard as she took flight from a nearby field, and it's just possible to get an idea of the glorious markings under her wings:
Now we're just waiting for our first swallow of the season (no sniggering at the back).