Cuckoo in the nest

A few weeks ago I was privileged to witness something that I consider to be a true wonder of the natural world and something that I had never witnessed before, a Cuckoo chick being fed by its' adopted parents. In this case the parent was a Reed Warbler which was extremely attentive, feeding its' oversized offspring every five minutes or so.
The Reed Warbler does not question its' weird looking youngster and the Cuckoo chick knows that it is a Cuckoo, indeed it will fledge and then fly to Africa knowing where all the other Cuckoos go and then return to start the process all over again. The Reed Warbler will breed again the folowing year and probably raise Reed Warbler chicks, never once thinking that these young look different to the bird they raised the previous year.
A true case of nature over nurture.

Juvenile Reed Warbler

There are still juvenile birds about being fed by their ever willing parents. None more so than these two juvenile Reed Warblers. Notice the short tail on the top photo, almost 'Wren' like.

Reed and Sedge Warbler

Two small, brown birds. Both come to Britain in the summer months in fairly large numbers in order to breed. They like spending their time in reed beds or thick undergrowth and they both have pretty similar songs.

Reed Warbler

Sedge Warbler

Below is a short video of the two birds in question, hopefully showing the difference in the two songs. The first bird is the Reed Warbler, a song which is 'chatty' and slow paced, consisting mostly of jittery notes which are repeated 2-3 times, interrupted by occasional mimicry or whistles. The second is the Sedge Warbler with a Reed Warbler in the background, this song is a series of long, loud sequences of not very varied excited notes relieved by rapid cascades of trills and whistles and occasional mimicry.

Reed Warbler

A bird that is more easy to hear than see. A skulking small, brown bird that comes to this country in the summer months to breed and spends the winter months in sub-tropical Africa.

A bird that I have never really been able to photograph well due to its habit of staying in dense reed beds. That has now changed.

It's a shame that in the bottom photo the bird is facing away from me, but I am quite pleased with the results. These two photos are crops of the originals, which are below. I put my fieldcraft `skills` into good use with this bird, hearing and seeing it first and then sitting still and waiting for the bird to come to me. At times he was less than 3 feet away, singing and just perched.

As always, click on the photos for a larger image.

Reed Warbler

I have been trying to get a photo of a Reed Warbler for a while now, but due the birds` skulking habits it has proven a little difficult. The digiscoped images above were managed by just waiting by a reedbed where I had heard a Reed Warbler singing and eventually the bird showed itself for a couple of minutes. There was a metal type of fence that the bird was perched behind, hence the blurry silver line over his feet, but beggars can`t be choosers!

The Reed Warbler is a common summer migrant to Britain, numbering between 40,000 and 80,000 pairs, although this number is lower than it was a few years ago. Drainage of reedbeds has had an effect on the bird, but they have started to colonise new habitats such as gravel pits which may help in the future.

A plain, unstreaked warbler that has brown upper-parts and a reddish brown rump. The underneath is buff, leading to white on the throat. A bird that you are more likely to hear before you see it, the `song` is a noisy, unmusical, repetitive chatter and churring with frequent changes in pitch that is very similar to the Sedge Warbler, although it is lower pitched and less varied than this bird. The nests of this bird are frequently parasitised by Cuckoos.