Where Have All the Sedge Warblers Gone

This season is turning into the most difficult we have experienced in the 16 years we have been doing our reed bed ringing at Leighton Moss. We usually rotate our ringing round four main sites, but this year due to the poor weather and the resulting high water levels we have only been able to make 12 ringing visits compared to an average of 24 in previous years. Allowing for this fall in activity Sedge Warblers are well down with 39 ringed this July a 37% decline on 2011. Reed warblers with 261 ringed are also down by 13%. By contrast Willow Warblers with 82 ringed are similar to 2011. Will be interesting to see what August brings- it may be that the season is later this year, in fact the last two days of July were our best day for Sedge Warblers. We also caught a Dutch ringed adult Sedge Warbler presumably ringed on passage in the Netherlands. John