One of the signature birds of the Weymouth Wetlands is the Cetti’s warbler – a ‘little brown job’ with an ‘often heard seldom seen’ reputation for leading birders on a merry song and dance. Frequenting dense undergrowth into which their subtle plumage cannily blends, their presence is most often betrayed by their unmistakable detonation of song which is heard throughout the year, but most emphatically at this time.
If you don’t know what to listen out for the comprehensive ‘Birds of the Western Palearctic’ describes their song as “TCHItchitchirititchitchirtitchi” but, if that makes you go cross-eyed, just listen out for the short noisy staccato refrain and dollar for a dime there’ll be a Cetti’s at the end of it.
A Radipole Cetti's (sorry can't find a photo credit...)
Radipole and Lodmoor both provide plenty of dense, varied vegetation adjacent to water (aquatic invertebrates are a favoured food) which is the habitat favoured by Cetti’s. In recent years we were recording up to eighty Cetti’s territories in springtime, although the recent cold winters have seen these figures contract by at least one third.
Notwithstanding the recent drop in numbers, the Cetti’s success on both reserves is fairly remarkable. The species was first recorded in the UK in the 1960’s and there wasn’t a confirmed breeding until 1973. Radipole hosted the first Dorset breeding pair also in the 70’s and has become a nationwide hotspot over the intervening decades – which may be because, (in spite of the references above to their skulking nature) the Cetti’s on Radipole and Lodmoor can actually be quite confiding. Perhaps this could be a result of much of their favoured habitat lying adjacent to our paths, thus making lumbering bipeds a familiar and mostly benign presence to them.
Now is as good a time as any to see them, as the biological necessities of the season further emboldens them and there are still very few leaves on the thorns and brambles to obscure them from our gaze. You may even find that rumours of their reserve have been greatly exaggerated!
Wonder if I ever will see one, you never know do you!