I20 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Family TURDID^. Genus Acrocephalus. 



Sub- family S ] Z VII NM. 



SEDGE WARBLER. 



Acrocephalus phragmitis {Bechsteiu). 

 Single Brooded. Laying season, May and June. 



British breeding area: The Sedge Warbler is 

 commonly distributed in all suitable localities throughout 

 the British Islands, with the exception of the Hebrides 

 (it breeds however in Skye), possibly the Orkneys, and 

 certainly the Shctlands, although it becomes rather more 

 local and less abundant in the extreme northern districts. 



Breeding habits : The Sedge Warbler arrives in 

 the British Islands near the end of April or the begin- 

 ning of May. Its haunts are by no means always of a 

 marshy nature, but the bird is certainly most abundant in 

 osier beds, reed beds where the ground is more swampy 

 than full of open water, and the tangled thickets and 

 marshy spinneys near the water-side. Less frequently 

 it may be seen in dense hedgerows at some distance 

 from water, but much more commonly in hedges that 

 border a stream. Like the Reed Warbler the Sedge 

 Warbler is often very abundant in a favourite haunt, 

 and directly after its arrival is very quarrelsome and 

 noisy until all have taken possession of certain spots, to 

 which they keep pretty closely through the nesting 

 season. The pertinacity with which the cock-birds sing, 

 day and night, readily proclaims the presence of this 

 species in a district, and as the bird is far from shy, and 

 hops about the vegetation in full view, its identification 

 is a matter of small difficulty. The birds pair soon 

 after arrival, and nest-building begins almost at once. 

 The nest is variously placed in willow bushes, amongst 

 dense hedges and thickets of bramble and briar, and in 



