arunwild

It’s a warm morning, and the riverside path is quiet. Three Cetti’s Warblers call and a Sedge Warbler tumbles up the bank and perches on a clump of tall grass, scolding as the dog ambles past. But far fewer Reed Warblers or Reed Buntings are calling than a few days back. They are still here, though, most obvious when they cross the river between the reed bed on the far side and the ditches and cropped fields on this. The heads of the male Reed Buntings gleam like black-glossed bullets as they make their uncompromising flights, unlike the Reed Warblers flitting mouse-like across the water. Thin calls by the river reveal two Common Sandpipers flying to one of the few remaining areas of mud left by the rising tide. In late May and early June it would be hard to say whether they were birds late heading north or early returning south. By now they are probably birds on return passage, though the species is so rarely absent from the river it seems like an honorary resident. Mean...