Our Summer Migrants: An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.Harting, James Edmund
Science
Our Summer Migrants: An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.
Harting, James Edmund
Birds -- Great Britain
Before the fens were drained, it is said that the rarer species, Savi’s
Warbler, was not uncommon in the eastern counties of England. The
fen-men used to distinguish it from the Grasshopper Warbler by its note,
calling the commoner species “the reeler,” the other “the night reeler,”
from the resemblance of its note to the whirr of the reel used by the
wool-spinners. In Norfolk, according to Mr. Stevenson, it appears to
have been known to the marsh-men as “the red craking reed-wren.” The
fens of Baitsbight, Burwell, and Whittlesea were formerly noted
localities for this species, then regarded as a regular summer migrant;
but extensive drainage and increased cultivation of waste land has
apparently destroyed the only breeding haunt which had any attraction
for it, and it can now be only considered a rare summer visitant. I have
once, and only once, seen this species alive in England. This was in a
large reed-bed close to the river, near Iken, in Suffolk, in the month
of September, 1874. The bird first attracted my attention by the very
rufous colour of the dorsal plumage, and as I succeeded in obtaining a
near view of it, I feel confident that I was not mistaken in the
species. The nest and eggs of this bird are reported to have been taken
in Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Essex, Kent, and once in
Devonshire.[22] In general appearance at a distance it is not unlike the
Reed Warbler, but on closer inspection will be found to have the upper
portions of the plumage and the tail more rufous, like the Nightingale;
hence the term _luscinoides_ which has been applied to it. The English
name is borrowed from its discoverer, Signor Savi, who found it in
Tuscany, and published an account of it in the “Nuovo Giornale di
Litteratura,” 1824, and in his “Ornithologia Toscana,” vol. i. p. 270.
The eggs are something like those of the Grasshopper Warbler, but larger
and darker; the nest is very different, being composed entirely of
sedge, so closely woven and interlaced as to remind one of the
mat-baskets which are used by fishmongers. Of the geographical
distribution of this bird we have yet a good deal to learn. It does not
appear to range very far northwards, but is observed annually in summer
in Southern Europe, passing by way of Sicily and the Maltese Islands to
Egypt. Mr. Salvin found it abundant in the Marsh of Zana, and Mr.
Tyrwhitt Drake met with it in Tangier and Eastern Morocco.
THE AQUATIC WARBLER.
(_Salicaria aquatica._)
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