Reed alert for a rare warbler
Menacing skies threatened lightning strikes across a dangerously exposed landscape.
The raised riverbank, looking over a swathe of reeds, was hardly the place to be with a telescope and metal tripod on the trail of an elusive bird.
Dark clouds super-charged an atmosphere already abuzz with anticipation as I fervently hoped the electrical storm would pass over.
As strands of blue began to appear over the horizon, signalling the worst had passed, a pulsating noise – something like the throbbing sound high-power cables make – filled the air. Somewhere, a Savi’s warbler was in full song.
Song is something of a misnomer for the sound made by these birds and their close relatives.
Like the river and grasshopper warbler, they also produce insect-like sounds in their preferred haunts. For the Savi’s warbler, this is stands of dense reeds, a habitat that has suffered great losses over the centuries.
Drainage of the Fens during Victorian times eventually brought about the local extinction of the bird old East Anglian marsh men dubbed the “red cracking reed wren”.
With a rich tawny plumage and skulking habits, this seems a far more appropriate name than the one honouring University of Pisa naturalist Paolo Savi.
A century would pass before the warbler re-emerged in the late 1960s to once again establish colonies in Suffolk and Kent. I hope the recent renaissance of the traditional reedbed, the source of old-fashioned thatching and modern-day biofuels, will herald further expansions of its range.
Conservation work to establish more reedbed reserves away from the coast and the threat of rising sea levels through climate change have been a boon for several species. Record numbers of more than 200 male bitterns now boom out their spring calls at 98 sites across England and Wales.
For the Savi’s warbler, another disappearance from our shores beckons.
The latest report from the Rare Breeding Birds Panel shows there were up to five pairs at three sites across the whole of the country, representing a 60% decline over the past 25 years.
Drainage of the Fens brought about their local extinction