Named after an 18th century Italian ornithologist, Francesco Cetti (9 August 1726 – 20 November 1778) the sound of Cetti's Warbler (Cettia cetti albiventris) is an impossibly loud series of notes, as if someone is shouting to attract your attention. From the depths of a thick patch of cover, there is quite literally an explosion of clear, penetrating notes. Each performance lasts a few seconds, ceases as abruptly as it begins and may not be repeated for several minutes.A small, brown bush-warbler it is usually associated with tangled vegetation near water or with reedbeds containing alders and an undergrowth including bramble, nettle and willowherb. Until the 1960s, Cetti's warblers were unknown in the UK but in Europe they were common in marshy areas, especially dense scrub and the edge of reed-beds and ditches. They first bred in these habitats in south-east England in the early 1970s and by the end of the century their loud and sudden song-bursts were startling people from southern England and South Wales and northwards as far as Yorkshire.
