A passage of Seven Whistlers and first Nettlecreeper of the year - 20th April 2023

 On the morning of 20th April I decided upon a walk along a 3 mile route on my patch around the Cressinghams in Norfolk.  The day dawned bright with cloudless skies and a moderate NE wind. The habitat I was passing through is well suited to Sylvia Warblers, so therefore, target species was to be either Lesser or Common Whitethroats.

As I was walking west towards Great Cressingham I became aware of distant birds high approaching from the west, this was a small flock of 9 Whimbrel, quite high and in a loose V formation.  I continued to watch the birds as they made their way east in the beautiful clear blue sky.  

Whimbrels are a scarce bird of passage on my patch and usually occur as single birds, therefore 9 together is a great patch record.

The Whimbrel is colloquially known as 'seven-whistler', this being due to the series of seven or so piping notes given by the bird, very distinctive and easily identifies this migrant.

Along my route several Blackcaps were in song as expected and on overhead wires in the village was a single Swallow whilst high up a number of House Martins wheeled about in the sky.

A low soaring Red Kite drew the attention of mobbing Lapwings and once it had alighted in a tree it then became the target of angry Jays.  Nearby a Little Owl was calling.  

It was while I was watching the Red Kite I heard a Raven calling.  Once a very rare vagrant in Norfolk, this very impressive crow species is being seen and heard with some frequency on the patch.  Usually I see single or pairs of Ravens, however, my best single count on my patch was 3 birds together.

As I approached the end of my walk, one of my target species for the day, a Whitethroat, was briefly singing from within the cover of a hedge, a slightly later arrival date for this Sylvia, but always a welcome returning migrant which always raises a smile and a "Welcome back beautiful" under my breath.  

Whitethroat or "Nettlecreeper"

Whitethroats is a species which has endured serious struggles following a very concerning population crash on their wintering grounds in the Sahel region of Africa when a drought in the winter of 1968/69 saw a crash in numbers of Whitethroats, a reduction in numbers so severe that it was reported that 90% of birds failed to appear in Britain the following summer to breed.  Numbers of Whitethroats have steadily increased since this dreadful time, however, not yet to pre-crash levels.  It is because of this desperately sad event that Whitethroats hold a special place in my heart and always bring a welcoming smile to my face.

The wintering grounds of the Whitethroat is in the Sahel, this is along the southern most boundary of the Sahara Desert and stretches from the Atlantic in the west to the Red Sea in the east, and is about 200 miles north to south.  The climate of the Sahel is tropical to subtropical.

I love to use colloquial names for birds, one of those for the Whitethroat is the "Nettlecreeper", an apt description for a species which skulks and nests within ground covering herbage.