Next day the consensus was that the bird looked and sounded the part, with more recordings and also photos appearing over the course of the day. Some thought it may be calling like a collybita (common) chiffchaff, but hard to tell with multiple birds present. Most importantly the song was consistently good and seemed classic.
I went down after work and the bird showed very well at times, consistently singing (as per the sonogram below) and also showing the helpful strong supercilium which was bright yellow in front of the eye, browner legs, overall cleaner and greener upperparts, and it also appeared quite long-winged. Overall it looked something between a chiffchaff and a willow warbler, and it visibly shook each time it uttered the last part of the call. Seems as good a candidate as you will ever get to me! Only my second (after one in Cornwall in 2000), although mainly as I've never been tempted to travel too far for one. It seems this species is firmly on the radar now and is a scarce spring migrant rather than the cryptic super rare it was one though to be.
Only the second Cheshire record so a great find - well done Luke!
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