The elusive Cetti's Warbler
29th March 2025
A lovely sunny morning with a slightly cool breeze
It's been 3 years since we began regular visits to our local RSPB reserve and at that time we knew very little about any birds other than ones that regularly visited our garden, but I would say our knowledge of birds and our ability to identify different species both by sight and song has increased greatly since then.
On one of our first ever visits to the reserve we found ourselves asking a fellow enthusiast if he knew the identity of a bird behind a particular song we kept hearing emanating from the hedgerow and he provided the answer, a Sedge Warbler, while at the same time recommending we downloaded the Merlin Bird ID app for future use. It was the Merlin app that allowed us to identify the often 'ear-piercing' song of the Cetti's Warbler but frustratingly it was never as easy to actually see one.
A Cetti's Warbler, 14th March 2025. Canon R7, Rf200-800mm
A Cetti's Warbler, 29th March 2025. Canon R5, Rf200-800mm
On the 18th May 2023 I managed to capture my first photograph of a Cetti's Warbler, a very blurred image that I have retained solely for my records.
It's been almost 2 years since that initial photograph of a Cetti's Warbler but I'm delighted to be able to report that I have had some success over the past two weeks as hopefully the accompanying photographs show.
It's entailed standing around for a short time in a certain spot where I knew a Cetti's Warbler was active until it decided to make an appearance and that's proved far better than walking along trying to chase after them. It still doesn't make it an easy task as these little birds are rarely still for long and they can move very quickly through the dense undergrowth. You also have to aim between a framework of twigs and branches in order to obtain an unrestricted view of your subject.
The photographs still leave me room for improvement as the most recent ones were taken at ISO 12,800! but surprisingly they've turned out quite well utilising Lightroom's 'denoise' feature in post production. That might not be so evident on these smaller blog images but larger images have been added to the main photo gallery.
I was surprised to discover only very recently that Cetti's is actually pronounced 'Chetty' - I've spent the past 2 years saying it with a leading 'S' and wondering why everyone else was pronouncing it incorrectly.
A Cetti's Warbler, 29th March 2025. Canon R5, Rf200-800mm