Three Siberian chiffchaffs, Martin Mere

I had an early start this morning and headed for Martin Mere again hoping for more views of the Siberian chiffchaffs P.c.tristis that have been present. As soon as I arrived at the viewing area near the sewage works I heard and then saw a tristis and with it was a more typical collybita chiffchaff. 

Yesterday I'd read a submitted description of a tristis from Northumberland which stated that the bird had responded well to playback (i.e. a recording of a tristis call) but that a nearby collybita had ignored it. I'm not really a big fan of using playback but given that Siberian chiffchaffs are certainly not breeding at Martin Mere, especially at the end of January, there didn't seem too much harm in trying, at least it would help confirm the identification.

The tristis immediately responded and came towards me but the collybita ignored the call and continued on it's way down the hedge line. The perfect result! It got better though, because almost immediately a second tristis appeared and joined the first. They were both calling to each other so I no longer needed the playback and instead just watched and photographed them. Suddenly I realised that there was another bird calling behind me and this flew over me and joined the other two. Now I had three Siberian chiffchaffs calling excitedly all around me, coming as close as 3m and allowing me to fire off a few close range photos. 

Fortunately this was one of the brightest periods of the day with the sun hidden behind just the flimsiest of cloud cover, and the birds certainly seemed to respond to the increased brightness and warmth. They just stayed near me for about 10 minutes calling and feeding, and at no time during this period did I see the collybita return.

Now that I had three tristis at close range it was interesting to see the subtle differences. I'm not sure that I managed to capture all three in the photographs, but certainly I have two. One of them (the third bird to arrive today), has a distinctive mark on the right hand side of its face.

Of course there is a large amount of variation.  On Tuesday I was contacted by a ringer in Cornwall who told me that "Of 130 Chiffs we’ve ringed in Cornwall this week 18 have been Sibes and they’re really variable in tone".

This is the bird with the distinctive mark under its eye. It's the same bird that I photographed on Tuesday when it was a duller day and the legs looked a lot blacker (see previous post)

Two Siberian chiffchaffs.

This is the typical British collybita chiffchaff taken just a few minutes before the three tristis appeared. Not a great photo but quite a startling difference after you've seen the pale tristis above.

The same collybita chiffchaff.

One of four male brambling from the Janet Kear hide. My camera never performs well near woodland feeding stations because they always seem to be in miserable locations where the light is poorest.

Little egret.

Woodend Marsh