Some waders!

March 11th - I’m sure a fair few people have now seen the pale Chiffchaff at Little Marlow GP.  This is an interesting bird and well worth taking the time for a look before it departs.  It certainly looks good plumage-wise for Siberian/tristis, as has been discussed and documented in various places.  The bird was completely silent until last week, when it started to call quite regularly; the call it gives is an upward inflected ‘houeet’, fairly typical to my ears of a standard collybita/abietinus.  I have not heard it make the single flat ‘pew’ call described as the typical tristis call at all.  So last Wednesday 4th, having heard this call, I was having reservations about it being a Siberian/tristis and thought perhaps it may be abietinus, though the plumage looks more tristis like to me.  I was then interested to see that Dave Cleal had heard it sing last Thursday, 5th – he bravely attempted to transcribe the call as 'Chifseeowchi' – this didn’t sound like the normal ‘Chiff chaff’ of collybita or abietinus, so I was keen to hear it myself.  It has taken until today for this to happen, but this morning it was singing on and off for some time (plus giving its frequent ‘houeet’ call).  The song is nothing like ‘chiff chaff’ and sounds very similar to the songs on xeno-canto labelled as tristis.  In fact, it sounds very similar to a bird recorded by Ashley Fisher on the IOS in April 2013 (6th bird down on the link below):

http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Phylloscopus-collybita?pg=6

It is also interesting to note that with that recording, he has said that it is uploaded as a pure tristis but with reservations, one of which is that it was giving an upward inflected ‘weet’ call.

So, is the Little Marlow bird a Siberian/tristis?  It certainly seems to be on plumage and song, but then why the different call?  It does not appear to be uncommon for this set of circumstances to be repeated in the UK with other birds also looking and singing like tristis, but calling ‘houeet’.  One hypothesis is that the call is learnt from the collybitas it is associating with – we know that wintering Chiffchaffs in the Med can pick up Iberian type song on occasion, so maybe this is what has happened.  I’m not sure, but if you want to hear this bird sing, I would go soon before it leaves.

 

It was preening as well today, so I managed a couple more record shots using digibinning - not a method I use very often.  It was in fairly strong light, so colours aren't as reflective as they might have been.

 

 

Also new in today and first for the year were a pair of Oystercatchers.  They do not breed here, so are only ever migrants and are more often seen in mid summer, which I have assumed is due to failed breeders.

 

 

And finally I have had success with Woodcock, which becomes the first species on the 2015 list which I did not see in 2014.  There is a regularish roost site that I check out from time to time, but with no luck for over a year (so not that regular!).  However, today whilst standing in an appropriate area and seeing nothing except Pheasants, I was about to leave when my phone rang with a wrong number.  Soon afterwards, a Woodcock lifted off from about 6 feet in front of me and landed in a nearby wooded area - nice!