Birds that bed in among reeds
IF you are wandering down by a lakeside at dawn and you happen upon a reed bed, you will be surprised at just how noisy it is.
First thing on a sunny morning, particularly in spring and summer, the reeds will be a bustling village of chirpy reed warblers and reed buntings. If you are really lucky you may get the odd bearded tit thrown in.
And in spring things can get to a new level with the booming of bittern in some very special areas.
Reed beds are wonderful hiding places for lots of wildlife and the bigger the reed bed, the more spectacular the creatures.
The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside spends lots of time growing and planting reeds, providing excellent, low level shelter for wildlife from predators and the ever-changing weather.
There are huge areas of reed beds at the Wildlife Trust’s Wigan Flashes, Brockholes and Lunt Meadows and the RSPB’s Leighton Moss. These areas are home or a stop-off for an amazing amount of wildlife.
I once spent 10 minutes trying to get a picture of a roe deer, which finally leapt into a lake and swam away, hidden behind the reeds. What a picture that would have been!
At the moment common reed are about six or seven feet tall, out of the water, with feathery purple brushes flapping over your head.
You can really get lost in a reed bed and we have recently added a footway in the middle of one area at Brockholes. It gives a bird’s-eye view of hiding in these plants, remaining unseen to the rest of the world.
When bitterns flap into a reserve it causes a flap among birders who spend hours scanning the reed edges to spot these camouflaged waders, who are part of the heron family.
Over the coming weeks the purple spikes will fade into spikelets and grow bristles. If you wander in you may find the round nests of reed warblers, woven as a sling between two or three reed stems. These nests are often invaded by cuckoos, with the tiny reed warbler suddenly feeding a chick five times its size.
Reed warblers will fly off in winter but the reeds are always inhabited by reed bunting.
These pretty little birds are not afraid to use bird tables as they search for food. The size of a sparrow, they have streaky brown bodies, males having black heads and throats, with a white collar and ‘moustache’.
Females look more sparrow-like apart from the darker marking on the head.
In the north west we are lucky to have bearded tits in our reed beds, making a ‘ting’ or ‘ping’ call as they fly around looking for insects.
Bearded tits are cinnamon-brown with grey heads and a black moustache. They have yellow bills and eyes and a long tail.
On our reserves we often get sightings of a fairly rare bird of prey, the marsh harrier. It is fairly obvious in flight, holding its wings in a V-shape. Males have a brown back, ginger belly, pale head and neck and long grey wings with black tips.
Females are chocolate brown with a goldenyellow crown and throat.
So don’t ignore reed beds. Sit for a while and listen to the sounds coming out of these wildlife towns and villages and, if you are lucky, someone may just pop up and say hello.