Aquatic warbler are fast becoming the most declining passerine in Europe they are confined to Eastern Europe and Russia and breed in very specific habitats within mainly in marshy areas. When theses little gems migrate and arrive in the UK they are restricted to the south with Cornwall, Devon and Sussex getting the lions share of the records.
I didn't have to wait too long before the bird sat up and started rot preen.
The crowed swelled as the afternoon drew closer and news of the bird hit the news services. This inevertably brought more people onto the small restricted area of tow path we were viewing the bird. This moved the bird further up the tow path and into deeper vegetation, but it wasn't flushed or pressured in anyway as it kept coming out with a bit of time and fieldcraft.
Similar to sedge warblers but with a promiant striped crown with a pale line through the centre and dark markings on either side, their underparts are pale, with fine streaky yellow-brown markings, particularly on the flanks and breast they can blend in and hide well within the yellowy grasses and vegetation.
But with some patience the bird showed well, if briefly at times, for such a sulky bird it showed very well indeed. No typical at all.
Despite its name the aquatic warbler can't swim, it doesn't have webbed feet, but they do like wet boggy, sedge filled marsh and wet grassland. So this linear area of rank grassland and dominated with sedges, grass, nettles and hogweed that runs alongside the river and the tow path is ideal habitat or the bird to feel safe in, find food and hide away.
