For a variety of reasons I have enjoyed quite a few late evenings and early
mornings on Wicken Fen this spring, the lure of a singing Golden Oriole being one of them. A dawn raid on Monday morning was cold, windy and fruitless. An evening visit on Wednesday with the
family was hopeful but as it turned out the bird had not been on Bakers Fen
as reported, the exuberant girls may well have given it a shock if it
had.
It was on my third, unsuccessful, visit to listen for the mellifluous,
descending loops of Oriole song that I met up with Mark Hawkes for a pre-work
walk.
A little despondent, it being 21 years since last hearing Golden Oriole in
the county at Burnt Fen, we walked back to Bakers and just as I was getting
my bike ready to go Mark said - "What do you make of that then??" Almost
immediately the song of Marsh Warbler popped out of the soundscape - with a
smile I said "That's Marsh Warbler". We had a little dalliance with
Blyth's Reed, the song was initially very short bursts, the pace was not
manic and there were quite a few introductory rolling ticcs. The song
then became fuller, prolonged and full of mimicry. When we saw the
songster the pale tipped primary projection was long, and supercilia
not as strong as we'd first glimpsed. I grabbed some video between a
couple if downpours and then had to get to work. Mark stayed and got
some more video, a steady stream of admirers have continued to enjoy the
bird and some lovely recordings of it's song have been published by Simon
Gillings.
Video - Mark Hawkes
Another MARWA has turned up at Wicken! I must go and take a listen/recording.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever hear my recordings of the 2016 bird? It also turned up in June. I managed to record it very early on a still, quiet morning and captured about an hour's worth of song, much of which is on Xeno Canto.
Hi Tony, I did post your beautiful Marsh Warbler recording on the blog back in 2016. I listened to it several times this spring as inspiration, I have been optimistically looking for Marsh Warbler for a couple of weeks, so pleased to have found one.
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