According to reports in Ornitho.de a Blyth’s Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus dumetorum) had been seen today – July 9th 2014 – on this tiny island in the Baltic Sea again.
After reports from the island of the Greifswald Oie earlier in the year and from the off-shore island of Heligoland there were increasingly reported observations from the mainland (as e.g. from an industrial area in the south-east of Hamburg), too. Now again a report from the Greifswald Oie. The bird, which has been spotted was reported as a male.
The last message of the previous year dated back to 16th of October of last year when a Blyth’s Reed-Warbler was trapped and ringed, too. Again on the Greifswalder Oie. In previous years, there were also records of Blyth’s Reed-Warbler (Acrocephalus dumetorum) of the Greifswalder Oie. Thus, inter alia, on 24/05/2012.
These Acrocephalus – Warbler seem to expand their distribution range. Apart from two evidence from the period before 1977 bush warblers were found in Germany only since the early 1990s. The breeding area of the Blyth’s Reed Warbler extends from southern Finland and the Baltic eastward to Lake Baikal in Russia. Since the 1970s, singing Blyth’s Reed Warblers are also reported every year in Sweden. As the wintering range of the species is found mainly in India and Sri Lanka, some birds might be overshots from the migration back to their regular breeding range.
Alone this year sightings were reported by more than 25 individuals in the last few weeks in Germany. This is so far the strongest observed occurrence of the species. In comparison in 2012 just 24 recognized birds were reported for the whole year. The earliest report relates to a May 20th 2014, which was caught on the above mentioned island “Greifswald Oie”. Since then, three more Blyth’s Reed Warbler there were caught and ringed and three additional birds observed. A similar number was reported from Helgoland. The bird could detected only five times in total in the years before. More recent observations are from Brandenburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Hesse and Thuringia. After Blyth’s Reed Warbler have bred in the past in Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands, the westward expansion might be not over.
However, the Blyth’s Reed-Warbler pictured in the blog image could not be photographed in Germany. Instead, this is an image made in the Keoladeo Ghana National Park (Bharatpur). The bird basked extensively on the edge of a bush on his wintering ground in India. Here, the species overwinters regularly.
To cope with the growing demand for top shots of the rarer species of the Palearctic Bird-Lens is keen to enrich the range of pictures of birds you can find in the western Palearctic. Trips to remote places to capture images of rare birds of western Palearctic were very successful. The nice image of the blog is only a first impression, what you will find in the gallery in the “Pictures Shop” very soon. Just give me a message, if I could serve you with an image needed before the new pictures are online.
Other successful shootings you can see under: www.bird-lens.com