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Updated: June 24, 2025
Israel's breast expanded, and he strode on with a firmer step. "She will be waking soon," he told himself. The world awoke. From unseen places birds began to sing the wheatear in the crevices of the rocks, the sedge-warbler among the rushes of the rivers. The sun strode up over the hill summit, and then all the earth below was bright.
In the sedge-warbler, the harsh, scolding sounds that express alarm, solicitude, and other painful emotions, have also been made a part of the musical performance; but this differs from the songs of most species, the mocking birds included, in the extraordinary rapidity with which it is enunciated; once the song begins it goes on swiftly to the finish, harsh and melodious notes seeming to overlap and mingle, the sound forming, to speak in metaphor, a close intricate pattern of strongly-contrasted colours.
In one case, a male occupied the same ground as a Sedge-Warbler, and there was a constant feud between them; a willow-tree formed its headquarters, and this same tree seemed to be the headquarters of the Sedge-Warbler, so that they often met and whenever they did so they quarrelled.
You may remember that some allusion was made to the fact that an outburst of song from one individual was followed, not unfrequently, by a similar outburst on the part of other individuals in the immediate locality. For example, silence may reign in the reed-bed except for an occasional note of the Reed-Warbler or Sedge-Warbler.
Again I plunged into my old meditations; but they were now peaceful, intermingled with the love-note of the nightingale and the solitary cry of the sedge-warbler. Ideas glided like fairies through my mind, lifting the black veil which had hidden till then the glorious future. Soul and senses were alike charmed. With what passion my thoughts rose to her!
The common thrush often sings far into the night, and the sedge-warbler is a persistent caroller that has often been mistaken for the nightingale. The difference in this respect between the two subjects of these remarks is that the nightjar is invariably silent all through the day, whereas the nightingale sings joyously at all hours.
I heard the sedge-warbler whistle drily in the willow-patch, and a nightingale sang with infinite sweetness in a close of thorn-bushes now bursting into bloom; blue sky above, a sapphire streak of waterway ahead, green banks on either side; a little enough matter to fill a heart with joy.
On the other hand, the Sedge-Warbler is most aggressive towards other kindred species, and when a male happens to occupy the same ground as a Reed-Warbler, there are frequent battles between them and incessant commotion; they fly at one another and meet in the air with an audible clicking of bills, or pursue one another amongst the reeds, each one uttering its characteristic scolding note.
Interesting as this concert was, it held me less than the solitary singing of a sedge-warbler that lived by himself, or with only his mate, higher up where the stream was narrow, so that I could get near him; for he not only tickled my ears with his rapid, reedy music, but amused my mind as well with a pretty little problem in bird psychology.
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