Looking towards the jetty at Speke-Garston Coastal Reserve May 2023
As I walked around Speke-Garston Coastal Reserve recently, I noticed the difference in the birds occupying both the soundscape and the landscape. Residents had given way to visitors, the latter muscling their way in to sing their own songs and raise their own families. So that observation became the basis for this blog post.
The skylark’s sweet silver song and thrilling ascent have been replaced by the common whitethroat’s scratchy song and shorter but no less eye-catching parachuting display. This grey-headed, white and beige little bird has to make its presence known in some way, and it intersperses these flight displays with plenty of singing – it might be rather plain and have what could be called an uninspiring song, but it is not afraid to show itself, standing loud and proud on exposed perches, as in the photo below.
Common whitethroat – photo by Birder Jack April 2023
Sedge warblers, as I discovered, also engage in short display flights, although often on a flatter, lower trajectory. Their mating calls cannot in truth be described as ‘songs’; they are a chaotic mix of whistles, clicks and thick trills interspersed with sudden pauses which even the most ‘scat’ of jazz musicians would dismiss as too unsyncopated and over the top. However, the sound carries well through dense vegetation, advertising the desires of a lovely bird with a striking white eye stripe and rich brown, buff and white plumage. Like the common whitethroat, this bird has travelled to Liverpool’s shores from south of the Sahara, and is making the most of its brief time here to find a mate and raise a family before facing the long return journey.
Sedge warbler – photo by Birder Jack April 2023
Another visitor from south of the Sahara is the reed warbler. It too is a brown bird, with a white chest, and a song that is similar but much more rhythmic than that of the sedge. It is also harder to see than the sedge, usually preferring to sing from deep inside reedbeds – perhaps worried about making itself too conspicuous, as the species is one of the favourite host species of the cuckoo.
Reed warbler – photo by Birder Jack April 2021
Grasshopper warblers – another brown and white visitor but one with a delightful scalloped pattern of black and brown on its back – have reeled from the reeds and scrub, their location sometimes difficult to pick out as they move their head from side to side as they reel, so the sound seems to be coming from a number of different places almost simultaneously. But they are quiet now: perhaps they have either mated or moved on.
Grasshopper warbler – photo by Birder Jack April 2023
In mid-May, the migrant birds that have been here longer are still singing: the blackcaps are bugling from hedgerows, the chiffchaff’s monotonous call is ringing out from the treetops, the willow warbler’s beautiful descending cascade can be faintly heard from various places around the reserve – all these spring and summer visitors are making their presence felt. But the resident wrens are also singing more loudly than ever from woodpiles and bramble thickets whilst the blackbird’s fluting notes echo all around. The song thrush, quiet for a month or so, has also started up again; perhaps one brood has been successfully raised and it is singing in anticipation of a second.
They all co-habit quite peaceably, if noisily at times. If only we could do the same, both with each other and with the rest of nature – imagine how thrilling the birdscape would be then.