Hawthorn Warbler

Digiscoped using Canon Powershot A640 and Kowa TSN-883 x30

Another one of our common summer migrants, the Sedge Warbler is a brown bird with a rather flat head, dark streaky crown and a prominent white stripe above its eye.

They breed in thick vegetation in wet places. They are present in marshes, reedbeds, riverside scrub, damp ditches and nettle beds. They also breed in dryer habitats, including bramble and (as in this case) hawthorn thickets and fields of rape and other crops. Nesting begins in late April, with the female building the nest,laying the 5-6 eggs and incubating the eggs for 13-15 days. The young stay in the nest for 10-14 days and are fed by both parents.

The Sedge Warbler arrives in mid-April and leaves its breeding grounds in July. They move to pre-migrating areas where they build up large fat reserves in order to fly 3,900 km to Africa, south of the Sahara. The oldest known individual lived for 7 years 11 months (that`s a lot of flying!).

There are thought to be 250,000 pairs in Britain, with populations fluctuating annually, with a drop of 45% between 1970 and 1998. The loss of wetland and harsh riverside management has affected breeding success, but much of the variation in population size is related to adult survival which is linked to changes in rainfall in their wintering grounds.