Your correspondent has never seen a yellowhammer – and quite frankly had no idea what one looked like – but was aware that the call is said to sound like “A little bit of bread and no (or some) cheese”. He was therefore really taken with two pictures of yellowhammers taken by, Diana, one of our volunteers, near her allotment on Eccup Moor Road. I think that you will agree that he or she is a very striking bird.
Here is what Diana says: “I saw it in the hedge on Eccup Moor Road. I am not sure what time of day, but we hear them down the plot singing away most afternoons into the evening. Yellow Hammers have a distinctive call described as sounding like a little bit of bread and some cheeeeese’ It has the rhythm of this phrase with a long whistling note at the end for the word cheese. We recognise their singing then see a flash of yellow of their bright heads speeding by.”
If you would like to hear their distinctive song, click here to hear the song of the yellowhammer – on the website of british-birdsongs.uk – which is a great resource for learning birdsongs.
If you would like to find out more about yellowhammers, here is the link to the RSPB page.
Friends of Adel Woods 
my father, from Devon, always said no cheese, not some cheese for the yellowhammer call. Maybe a Devon dialect bird in his youth. Before 1938!