The beautiful Wood Warblers of the Wyre Forest

After my two recent mega twitches to see the rare Scoters in Scotland and the Grey-headed Lapwing in Northumberland some very laid back local birding was definitely what the doctor ordered this week. I am very fortunate to have the Wyre forest just 20 miles from home, a magical place where you can lose yourself completely in nature and forget the troubled outside world. It’s a place that you really can’t visit too often as a bird lover in the spring with the possibility of Dippers, Tree Pipits, Redstarts, Pied Flycatchers and Wood Warblers to delight you.

Wood Warblers normally arrive a little later than most other spring migrants and I was too early to see them on my last visit in April. So armed with coffee and biscuits I arrived at the Dry Mill Lane car park in the forest early on Thursday morning. The morning was bright and clear and my spirts were immediately lifted hearing Blackcaps and Blackbirds singing their spring serenade. Surely Blackbird song is underrated compared to other more famous songsters like the Nightingale, perhaps its familiarity makes us take it for granted. I walked leisurely through the forest taking in the sights, sounds and smells of late spring, so very different and chilled out compared to the nervous rush of a twitch.

I have a spot in the forest overlooking a shaded dell which normally holds several Wood Warbler territories. Here there is a moss covered log where I have spent many a therapeutic hour watching and listening to Wood Warblers while slurping coffee. I immediately heard the unmistakable trill of a male Wood Warbler singing, often described as like a spinning coin which, in my humble opinion, really does not do it justice. I sat and waited patiently thinking, as in the past, that he would be doing a circuit of the dell and would soon come to my viewing log. After 30 minutes of so, and several cups of coffee, the trilling was still coming from exactly the same spot so I moved back up to the main path to see what was going on and there he was only 20 meters from where I had been sat. He was doing a very small circuit of the trees, never really moving more than ten or so meters.

The Wood Warbler is one of the Phylloscopus species of leaf warbler and is strongly migratory with the whole population overwintering in tropical Africa. Unlike some other members of the Phylloscopus family, Chiffchaff, Yellow- browed Warblers, Hume’s Warbler etc., none have overwintered in the UK …. Yet. With Global warming I guess it is only a matter of time though.

As is my normal habit, I sat down to lower my profile and kept very still. I was treated to some exceptional close views with the warbler coming withing 6 feet of me, often perching above my head before having a good old trill. While it was very confiding it was also restless, never staying in one place for more than 5 seconds before hopping to another perch. This went on for two hours or more with the bird hardly having time to draw breath before its next performance. As the bird sang its whole body from top to tail vibrated in phase with the trill. It looked exhausting but on an on he went. He attracted at least one female so I guess his efforts were

worthwhile. As lunch time approached I sadly pulled myself away and as I walked up the path the trilling slowly faded into the background sounds of the forest.