A Calendar of Haiku - May
Sedge Warbler Sing
Silent for most of the year, in late April or early May, for a few weeks boy can you hear them, as they sing all day and often into the night.
Inauspiciously buff-brown, Sedge Warbler (along with Swift) have got to be my bird of the month (May)
sedge warbler climbing among flags sing incessantly
Never singing the same song twice - and a great mimic, the male Sedge Warbler introduces random phrases into its repertoire - the song often including phrases snatched from other birds - Blackbird, Chaffinch, Pied Wagtail and Great Tit.
Artist Credit
The featured image is of a limited edition print (16/500) of Sedge Warbler in Reedbed by Philip Rickman 1979.
The recording in this post is used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. This and many more can be found at - Xeno-Canto
Published early ‘cos I have a great post, on the Dawn Chorus, planned for early May
What a wonderful outpouring! This bird is a painter with all the other birds in his song. Beautiful picture, too.
I like your description of him being a painter. If we’re lucky I get to hear them in the reeds and willows of a nearby marsh as they arrive back from Africa. The males are very competitive and it’s believed the bird with the most variety in his song gets the girl, well often more than one!
I love the song of the sedge warbler but as I am on complete lock-down I don’t think I will be able to hear it ‘live’ this year. I am grateful for your inclusion of it in this post and for the link to Xeno-canto.
I don’t think I’ll get to hear them this year either Clare, though they occasionally breed on the marsh a little way up the lane from our house. It’s within permitted walking distance – so if they turn up I should hear them.
Yes, amazing range of notes for a tiny brownish bird. Your haiku really capture so many of the different birds.
Yes the birders classic ‘little brown job’. But he certainly makes up for it in his song.
Both male and female Great Spotted Woodpecker on the feeders early this morning. Plenty of visiting Goldfinch, Chaffinch and Greenfinch. The three Siskin, two males and a female around this evening – males displaying (agression?) showing the yellow on their outstretched wings and twin yellow spots on fanned tails.
The first of our Brandt’s bats out flying tonight after a very warm day. A perfect crescent moon hung in the sky.