The Dartford Warblers in North Norfolk are having a tough time. I’ve not seen one on the heath this year. Going back a few years I had a maximum of around seven. Now, it appears there’s just a single elusive male remaining. I’m not sure why there’s been such a decline as a couple of mild winters should have enabled them to survive. I guess it’s important to remember they are at the edge of their range so numbers will naturally wax and wane.
We were looking for Woodlark and I was spreading the net a little wider than I would normally do last week. Still on the coast we went up to site I don’t often visit. No Woodlark there but the quiet subsong of a Dartford caught my ear. A few enquiries and apparently it’s been present around 13 months.
The species did breed last year in the East of the county. Hopefully they will do so again this year and the two other remaining males in North Norfolk will manage to attract females and we’ll have a few colonies that will maintain the presence of what are believed to be the most Northerly birds in Europe.
Letter From Norfolk 