It’s a battle of skill between two extravagantly talented musicians, fought out on a bright spring day in North Yorkshire. 

The two rivals shun the limelight, preferring to skulk in the shadows – but their fluting tunes waft over to me on the breeze as I stand on the track through the trees, struggling to spot the tiny songsters among the fresh, green leaves.

Suddenly, they break cover – two male blackcaps chasing each other around in the willows, before perching briefly to deliver more bursts of sweet melody. This mobile song contest – chase then sing, chase then sing – carries on for several minutes. 

Their musical prowess has earned these warblers the nickname “northern nightingales.” As the breeding season gets into full swing, they’re competing for the attentions of females, who sport chestnut markings on their heads – unlike the males’ black caps that give the species its name. 

I’m sure the two competing singers have got an appreciative, chestnut-headed audience somewhere in these trees – but it’s keeping well out of sight among the foliage.

It’s amazing to think that, just a few weeks ago, these blackcaps were somewhere between 900 and 1,500 miles away in Southern Europe or North Africa. Like most of the UK’s warblers, they’re migrants, who make the perilous journey here to breed, before leaving our shores at the end of summer.

Wheldrake Ings, a few miles south-east of York, has plenty of attractions as a destination for warblers: a plethora of trees, shrubs and brambles to provide cover for nests, and a plentiful supply of invertebrates to feed to growing chicks.

Many warblers are fine singers, but when it comes to their looks, some could be described as the birdwatchers’ classic “little brown job.” The epitome of these is the garden warbler, which the RSPB guide describes as “a very plain warbler with no distinguishing features (a feature in itself!).” My Merlin bird sound app identifies its rich, mellow song as soon as I arrive at the Wheldrake Ings car park, but I’m unable to spot the (apparently rather undistinguished) singer.

Merlin proves useful as I wander along the sunlit track, with the River Derwent on one side and floodplain meadows – where the winter waters are now receding - on the other. It can be hard to see small birds in dense foliage, but the app hears seven different species of warbler.

One particularly beautiful, cascading song – like water tumbling over rocks – is repeated time and time again as I make my way through the trees. It’s being performed by willow warblers, who’ve just arrived at Wheldrake Ings after flying more than 5,000 miles from Southern Africa.

I get close enough to photograph one, rather appropriately, in one of the many willow trees alongside the track. If I hadn’t heard it singing, I’d have struggled to tell it apart from another species of little leaf warbler that’s also travelled here to breed at this time of year.

Chiffchaffs look very similar to willow warblers, but the difference becomes obvious the moment they open their beaks. While willow warblers are accomplished songsters, chiffchaffs belt out the repetitive chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff that gives them their name. It’s never going to win any song contests, but it’s one of the most recognisable sounds of spring in woodland areas like this throughout the UK.

It’s a reminder that warblers don’t all warble sweetly. Sedge warblers – which have journeyed here from trans-Saharan Africa in the last couple of weeks - have a “scratchy, whirring song,” according to a YWT information board. I can hear several of them in the riverside vegetation and reedbeds, sounding more mechanical than musical.

I come across another warbler making a sound that reminds me of someone blowing raspberries. It’s a common whitethroat – another African migrant – flicking its tail as it flits around a pile of cut branches.

This is its churring alarm call and, to be fair, it does produce a perfectly acceptable song from a perch on a willow branch once it’s feeling a little more relaxed.

Ever since I arrived at the car park, I’ve been hearing quick-fire salvos of loud song bursting out of various locations hidden deep among vegetation. The secret singers are Cetti’s warblers – relatively recent additions to the UK’s array of bird species, having first bred in Kent in 1972.

These shy birds are notorious among birdwatchers for being heard but not seen, and – even though I search through binoculars throughout my day at Wheldrake Ings – they manage to outwit me and live up to their reputation. 

Cetti’s warblers remain in the UK and sing all year round, so I’ll have the chance to hear (and fail to see) them whenever I return to this wonderful reserve.

As for the other warblers – enjoy their musical magic while you can. In four or five months they – and the youngsters they’ll raise here over the summer – will leave on the long flight back to Africa.