page_title: Titchwell Marsh
section_title: Birds
hierarchical_section_title: Titchwell Marsh / Fauna and flora / Birds
caption_attribution_description: English: Juvenile Sedge Warbler, Acrocephalus schoenobaenus, in reeds at RSPB Titchwell Marsh, Norfolk, England.
context_page_description: Titchwell Marsh is an English nature reserve owned and managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Located on the north coast of the county of Norfolk, between the villages of Titchwell and Thornham, about 8 km east of the seaside resort of Hunstanton, its 171 hectares include reed beds, saltmarshes, a freshwater lagoon and sandy beach, with a small woodland area near the car park. This internationally important reserve is part of the North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest and the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is also protected through Natura 2000, Special Protection Area and Ramsar listings.
  The reserve is important for some scarce breeding birds, such as pied avocets on the islands, and western marsh harriers, Eurasian bitterns and bearded reedlings in the reeds. To encourage bitterns to breed, the reed beds have been improved to make them wetter, and the lagoon has been stocked with the common rudd. Typical wetland birds such as the water rail, reed warbler and sedge warbler also appear, and little egrets are common. The reserve has regularly attracted rarities, as its location is important for migrating birds.
context_section_description: The key breeding species are reed bed specialists such as the marsh harrier, Eurasian bittern and bearded reedling, together with the avocet, the RSPB's symbolic bird. Bitterns stopped breeding on the reserve in 1989 due to inadequate habitat and a lack of sufficient large food fish; although European eels, a favoured food, are present, the numbers are too low. These problems were addressed by managing water levels and excavating some of the reed bed to create open, reed-fringed pools, and stocking the lagoon with the common rudd; breeding recommenced in 2004. In 2011, there were 80 avocet nests, two pairs of Eurasian bitterns, and four pairs of marsh harriers, the latter successfully fledging seven young.
  Other breeding birds include ringed plovers and Eurasian oystercatchers in the sand dunes, and water rails in the reed bed. Sedge, reed and Cetti's warblers all nest in the wetland, and little egrets are now common on the reserve. In early summer, scarcer migrants like the little gull, black tern, Eurasian spoonbills and garganey may pass through on their way to breed elsewhere.
  In the autumn, species arrive from the north, some, such as black-tailed godwits, curlew sandpipers and little stints just passing through, pausing for a few days to refuel, others staying for the winter. This is also a good time to see bearded reedlings. Offshore, great and Arctic skuas, northern gannets and black-legged kittiwakes may pass close by in favourable winds.
  Large numbers of ducks winter on the reserve, including many Eurasian wigeons, Eurasian teals, mallards and gadwalls, and smaller counts of goldeneyes and northern pintails. Offshore, there may be large "rafts" of common scoters, and smaller numbers of common eiders, long-tailed ducks, velvet scoters and red-throated divers. Brent geese feed on sea lettuce and other green algae, and hundreds of European golden plovers may roost on the reserve at high tide. In the evenings, large flocks of pink-footed geese fly over Titchwell on their way to roost, and barn owls and hen harriers quarter the marshes. This is the season for flocks of lesser redpolls, sometimes accompanied by a rarer common redpoll, and snow buntings are to be found on the beach.
  The reserve's location means that migrants may be found, sometimes in huge numbers when the weather conditions are right, sometimes including vagrant rarities. Major rarities in recent years include a Pacific golden plover and a great knot in 2016, and a slender-billed gull and a penduline tit in 2014.
caption: Sedge warblers breed in the marsh.
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