Wood Warbler Mystery

Wood Warblers are summer visitors to Britain and in the last twenty years their numbers have declined by up to 90%. In fact forty years ago I could have found them breeding within one mile of my home in Rochdale. Sadly not any more, only a handful return to the Pennines each year. The male starts to sing immediately he arrives but in most cases he fails to attract a female and so moves on. No one knows why there has been a catastrophic decline in this stunning little Warbler and unless we can find an answer we have no chance to help reverse the current downward spiral. This weeks photos are of a single male in Bowland last week. Click here In the garden this week we have had more than twenty different species coming to the food offered. These have included a male Great Spotted Woodpecker who has taken food away to a nestful of young somewhere nearby. On another day twenty three Starlings dropped in to devour the fat-balls.