The liquid tinkling of this tiny finch adds to the springtime chorus in Spain but can we expect to see the bird in Britain?

Under a fiercely blue sky, the sun shines down on groves of oranges and almond blossom. I am in the mountain village of Sella, in Spain’s Alicante province, enjoying a sneak preview of spring – a month or more before it arrives in Britain.

The migrant birds are not yet back, but half a dozen different butterflies are on the wing and birdsong fills the air. The scratchy sound of Sardinian warblers, the metallic song of the black redstart, and, from every little bush and tree, the liquid tinkling of serins.

A cousin of the canaries trapped in their cages nearby, the serin is Europe’s smallest finch, a plump, yellow ball of feathers fringed with grey and green.

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Serins are such a common bird here and throughout most of western Europe it’s hard to believe they are so scarce in the UK. Yet from the 1960s onwards they did breed for a while in Devon and Dorset, before deciding that our climate wasn’t quite what they were looking for and retreating back across the channel.

Seeing them here, though, gives me hope that one day they might return to Britain, and I’ll hear their delicate song echoing across my own village.