Rye Harbour Soundscapes

Winter Ducks at Castle Water

Today at the hide at Castle Water it was calm and grey making the sounds of the birds very clear. This recording starts with a loud Coot that was so close you can hear it diving. A background of Teal calling and the louder whistling of Wigeon. In the background the Cormorants are starting to display on their treetop nests with a deep gutteral call. Then the Wigeon get very excited as they try to impress a spare female.

Jackdaw chicks

Camber Castle is home to many pairs of  jackdaws and most nests have now hatched. These chicks are in a hole above the main entrance and sound quite old - they will soon be exploring Henry VIII's castle ruins.

Squeaky Birds

At Castle Water the background noise is a continuous squeaky sound. It is the begging calls of nestling cormorants demanding to be fed. They peck at the yellow patch around the bill until the adult lets them in... and the chicks head and neck goes right into the parents throat where their fishy meal is waiting. In this track there are two deeper sounds that are adults in the colony still nest building.

Castle Water hide

A good selection of species behind the constant background of squeaking of cormorant chicks and a foreground chiffchaff. The supporting cast in order of appearance is chaffinch, oystercatcher, cuckoo, shelduck, woodpigeon, blackcap, sedge warbler, jackdaw and lapwing.

Lesser Whitethroat

This is one of the last warblers to arrive and can now be heard singing from many patches of scrub. This track has two bursts of the dabadabadoo song.

Not much of a song

The black and white headed male reed buntings are now singing from their song posts on the top of brambles or reeds. It is a repetitive tuneless rattle rather than a song.

Nightingale

For the last three years nightingales have been singing from the willows at the pits near to Rye Harbour village. Recently there have been up to three, but this morning I could only hear one. At about 37 secs there is a loud burst of echoing cettis warbler and a cuckoo starts at 54 secs.

Willow and Cettis Warblers

The stormy weather calmed enough this morning to try recording some of the great range of bird song at the moment. The viewpoint at Castle Water offered a little shelter, so I sat and listened to a freshly arrived willow warbler singing repeatedly, while the loud burst of the resident Cettis warbler sounded out at 5 sec and again at 1 min 10sec. There is the background chatter of reed warblers and the occasional woodpigeon, herring gull and coot.

Reed warbler

Despite the rough weather most of the warblers are in now and it is trickier to pick out the reedy ones. In this track the foreground bird is the reed warbler with repeated rhythm and a bit more tune than the earlier sedge. At about 23 seconds a background sedge starts and towards the end the overhead skylarks take over.

Whitethroat

These warblers have only been back a couple of days, but this male was already nest building this morning (even during this recording). The song of the whitethroat is quite similar to some sedge warblers (below) and is usually delivered from bramble.