Reed warblers | Acrocephalidae

Rietzangers | Carriceros

Plain brown to olive warblers without wing bars, with a long bill, broad and flat at the base and set with bristles, a smoothly sloping forehead and long toes that grasp two upright stems at once. They climb and creep through dense waterside growth and scrub and are known above all by the song: a loud, rhythmic, grating chatter, much repeated and packed with imitations of other species, delivered by day and by night. The nest is a deep cylindrical basket woven around standing stems so that it can sway in the wind without tipping. All the European species are long-distance migrants to Africa and are present here for only three or four months.