The Common Whitethroat's song is short, hurried and grating — a series of scratchy and chattering notes often described as "wed-wed-wittt-tjerr" or "tjurr-tjurr-vitjitjitji". The whole phrase lasts only a couple of seconds but is repeated incessantly during the breeding season and is impossible to mistake once you have learnt it. The song has a characteristically ragged and slightly uneven quality, as if the bird is hurriedly throwing out the notes without quite keeping up.
The most conspicuous — and audible — song behaviour is the song flight: the male rises out of the thorn bush with quivering, noisy wingbeats and sings its grating phrase while hanging in the air a couple of metres up, before diving back down into the thicket. This is easily seen and heard at a distance and is one of the