BIRDS ON THE BRINK

Each issue, the team behind Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) looks at conservation issues surrounding different species from the UK and beyond, using beautiful images to inspire. This month it focuses on the Aquatic Warbler – fine-tuned land manageme

The Aquatic Warbler is an unobtrusive songbird, one that is hard to census, and it is said to be the only globally-threatened passerine that breeds in mainland Europe. It has very precise habitat requirements and that is the root cause for its restricted and diminishing range. Nesting birds favour unprepossessing, short-growth sedge fen mires that typically are inundated by a few centimetres of water during the breeding season. Habitat loss and degradation are thought to be the main reasons for the species’ decline. Its eastern European breeding grounds are disjunct, as are its wintering grounds – these are mainly in Mali and Senegal and, amazingly, were only discovered in 2007.

As mentioned, surveying the species is a bit of a challenge: birds are typically rather shy and males only sing, rather unenthusiastically, between about 5.30-7.00pm. At other times, they creep around in the manner of a mouse or vole, or a Locustella warbler, their streaked yellow and brown plumage affording them excellent camouflage. Research has shown the species to be a promiscuous and unconventional breeder, akin to the Dunnock in some regards, with both females and males having young with multiple partners.

In the past, conservation bodies have helped its plight, for example by supplying machinery to maintain good quality habitat for the species on its breeding grounds. Belarus holds the lion’s share of the world’s breeding population, and I visited the country a few years ago to see and photograph the species. The trip revealed a rather sad addendum to what should have been a positive conservation story. I noticed an immense, and clearly hugely-expensive, grass-cutting machine lying idle near one of the prime sites for nesting Aquatic Warblers; its presence there was due to the generosity of foreign conservation organisations.

I enquired about its seemingly rather neglected state, only to be told that a drive belt (or something similar) had broken the previous year and there was no money to import one from Germany, and nobody who knew how to fit one anyway. And in any case, there was no money available for the fuel or to employ somebody who knew how to operate the machine. That was a few years ago, as I say, so let’s hope the situation has improved; but it serves to highlight the need, in many situations, for follow-up support and finance, rather than just gifts or one-off payments.

Typically, Aquatic Warbler habitat is rather uniform, and so territorial males use the remnants of straggly plants from which to survey their domains.

In its favoured habitat, Aquatic Warbler is the only passerine songster likely to be active in the late afternoon, with perhaps distant accompaniment from Corn Crakes and River Warblers, if you are lucky...

Classic Aquatic Warbler habitat in Belarus, stretching away into the distance and photographed at the witching hour for singing birds – around 6.30 in the evening. Signs of previous wetland management are seen in the piles of grass cuttings stacked at the edge.

A specialist grass- and vegetation-cutter used to manage Aquatic Warbler habitat, unfortunately lying broken down and idle and in need of repair.

Seen well, there is no mistaking an Aquatic Warbler, with its stripy back and diagnostic head markings. All in all, it is a rather atypical Acrocephalus warbler, to my eyes, with perhaps a nod to entirely unrelated North American Ammodramus sparrows, such as LeConte’s Sparrow.