Enthusiasm for wetlands won’t dry up

Cetti’s warbler returns north, despite cold snap

1st February, 2010

Despite the hardest winter for 30 years, birdwatchers have been thrilled to hear Cetti’s warblers singing on a wetland nature reserve at its northernmost limit - ahead of World Wetlands Day (Tuesday 2 February).

The Wildlife Trusts are celebrating the return of the Cetti’s warbler to Potteric Carr for the second consecutive year, after work was done to create and manage the right habitat for the ‘little brown job’ - named after Italian mathematician and naturalist, Francesco Cetti.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Potteric Carr reserve officer, Tim Bailey, said: “The Cetti’s warbler is at the northernmost limit of its worldwide distribution and it is extraordinary it has made it so far north. It is extremely hard to see as it skulks low down in scrub. However, amongst the smaller European birds it has one of the loudest songs and sings throughout the year, even in the winter months. Its loud bursts of song revealed its presence at Potteric Carr.

On World Wetlands Day, The Wildlife Trusts are highlighting their major drive to restore natural habitats, if the UK is to continue to sustain its people and wildlife in the face of a changing climate. The Wildlife Trusts are working to transform the UK into ‘A Living Landscape’, where there are suitable habitats for new species to colonise and thrive. This includes an extensive network of wetland habitats which are being restored and reconnected to allow birds, like the spoonbill and cattle egret, to become more abundant.

Tim Bailey continued: “We are delighted the habitat we have created here has enabled the Cetti’s warblers to stay so long this winter. We hope the singing males will attract a female and they will stay to breed.

“We will be looking at how we can extend the area of suitable habitat for this bird, for example by retaining favoured scrub habitats around the edges of reedbeds and other wetland sites in the county.

But we must go beyond our own reserves and extend existing areas of good quality habitat to create networks of open water, reedbed, wet grassland, marsh, wet woodland and scrub. This will enable existing species to adapt to change and accommodate a new range of species too. These areas would have big benefits for wildlife in the future and for people too – by enhancing water quality and by providing flood storage areas.”

The first record for the Cetti’s at Potteric Carr was 10 years ago. The second was in 2009. The Cetti’s warbler is one of the species The Wildlife Trusts have recorded as moving ever northward over recent years. At the turn of the century its distribution in Europe was restricted to Mediterranean regions. However, after a series of milder winters it spread through France and across to the UK, first breeding in southern England in 1973.

Despite occasional population crashes during hard winters, Cetti’s warbler continued to colonise counties in the south of England, the Midlands and Wales with the bird recorded at reserves in many counties including Cambridgeshire (Ditchford Lakes and Meadows), Cornwall (Nansmellyn Marsh), Devon (Old Sludge Beds) Suffolk (Oulton Marshes, Snape Marshes), Kent (Holborough Marshes) Dorset (West Bexington), Worcestershire (Upton Warren), Norfolk (Ranworth Broad, part of Bure Marshes NNR). Cetti’s warbler is now resident and breeding in many of the southern counties.

More recently it has moved to sites well to the north, for example, at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s Carr Vale Nature Reserve in north east Derbyshire. And at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Potteric Carr Nature Reserve, near Doncaster, where up to three were recorded singing over the winter.

Paul Wilkinson, head of A Living Landscape for The Wildlife Trusts, said: “Despite the hard winter of 2009-2010, the overall trend of milder winters is expected to continue. There are major concerns about species, such as the dormouse or mountain hare, which may suffer long-term declines and local extinctions as a result of such change.

“Some of these new species - for example great egret, little egret, cattle egret and Cetti’s warbler - are being recorded at our nature reserves and on land next to, and between, them too. This helps reinforce The Wildlife Trusts’ commitment to engaging with landowners and others to protect and manage larger areas of land to help species adapt to change.”

Story by RSWT

More Information

For further information please contact Anna Guthrie, media & PR manager, on 01636 670075 / 07887 754659 / aguthrie@wildlifetrusts.org or Tanya Perdikou, media & campaigns officer, on 01636 670057 / 07887 754657 / tperdikou@wildlifetrusts.org

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