A presumed Siberian chiffchaff tristis was with a flock of long-tailed
tits on the ruck near to the 5-bar metal gate just west of the leaning posts,
adjacent to Ramsdales reedbed. Initially I had a very brief view of a
chiffchaff with a distinct pale supercilium in a birch tree. I tried a bit of
playback and the bird responded immediately, flying right over my head and
landing in a tree 3m behind me on the ruck, calling twice as soon as it landed.
Unfortunately I was looking right into the bright sun, so I could get no
colouration on the bird, it was just a tail-pumping silhouette. The bullfinch like call was quite unlike a common chiffchaff
collybita. Then it was gone, it flew over the pond and into the trees.
I didn't see it again.
I'm calling it presumed rather than definite just because I didn't see it as
well as I would like and the call doesn't completely rule out other races of
chiffchaff, though how likely they are to be seen in the UK I couldn't say.
Perhaps rarer than tristis!
Over the past four or five winters I've spent a lot of time at the sewage works at Martin Mere watching and listening to the several tristis that over winter there. I have no doubt that what I heard was this race.
Also today a great white egret was in Ramsdales. This is the first I have seen
here for a few days, since the water levels went up.
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