Sedge Warbler - 1894

Acrocephalus phragmitis

A common summer visitor.

Next to the Chiff-chaff, perhaps, the most numerous of the soft-billed summer visitors in Pembrokeshire. When we were fishing in the Cleddy below our house in the spring and summer, we were always provided with entertainment by the Sedge Warblers that were very abundant in the tangled cover by the side of the stream through which we had to force our way. Their restless plunging into the bushes and out again, sometimes scolding at us, sometimes trilling a few notes of their babbling song, was most amusing. And every now and then we would start one from its nest. After this experience of the abundance of the bird in our locality it is curious to read that Mr. Tracy considered it scarce, and that Mr. Dix had only heard it in one place, " in some willow bushes near Cardigan." We do not consider that this is any proof of any inequality in the bird's distribution, but only that it points to these two excellent observers and naturalists not having had at hand the country that the Sedge Warbler alone frequents ; swampy, bushy places, and the banks of brooks that are fringed with thick growth of brambles, furze, and other suitable cover for the bird to nest and harbour in.

Mathew M.A. 1894, Birds of Pembrokeshire and it's Islands