Great Reed Warbler

Voice

The song is a loud, slow, grating stutter mixing deep croaks and shrill squeaks, classically rendered karra-karra-kreet-kreet-kreet, with frog-like notes between; heard from late April to mid-July, through the middle of the day and sometimes at night. Alarm is a deep churring tcharr.

Identification

Bulky, almost thrush-sized for a reed warbler, with a heavy long bill, a flat crown often raised into a peak, and a short pale supercilium that stops at the eye. Warm brown above, creamy on the throat with dull buff flanks, and strikingly large, powerful legs and feet. Sexes alike; juveniles are warmer rufous.

Confusion species

Reed Warbler is the standard confusion, but it is much smaller, finer-billed and sings in an even, chuntering rhythm, where Great Reed Warbler is slower, deeper and far louder. Savi's Warbler gives a level reeling trill, and Sedge Warbler shows a bold supercilium and streaked crown. Size alone deceives: use bill, voice and the heavy legs.

Habitat

Old, stout standing reed with its feet in water, in broad fringes along lakes, oxbows, clay pits and fish ponds. It avoids narrow, dried-out or annually cut reed; nests are slung low between thick, second-year stems over open water.

Range and movements

From Iberia and North Africa to central Asia. In the Netherlands much reduced, now largely confined to the Randmeren, Nieuwkoopse Plassen and a few marshes in Zuid-Holland and Overijssel. In Spain it is a widespread summer visitor to reed fringes along rivers, rice fields and lagoons, with strongholds in the Ebro Delta, l'Albufera and Doñana; all birds winter in sub-Saharan Africa.

• Breeding (summer)
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

May and early June, at any hour of daylight: take a dyke or boardwalk beside broad standing reed and scan the plumes, because singing males often climb into full view at the top. In the Netherlands this takes searching; in Spain one morning at a lagoon or rice field is usually enough.

Conservation status

Not globally threatened, but sharply declined in north-west Europe with the loss of broad, multi-year standing reed. Rigid water levels without natural fluctuation, grazing by geese and muskrat, annual reed harvest and boat wash are the main causes; in the Netherlands it is Red-Listed.