This morning we found this lesser whitethroat
at Northbay, amazingly in the very same garden where we had previously seen our only
other record of the species on the island in 2022. On looking at the photos I
think that this is a strong contender for the subspecies
Curruca curruca blythii also known as Siberian lesser whitethroat.
I've seen a few blythii over the years and this bird seems to have
some characteristics of that race. Some of the photos are a little burnt out due to the bright sunlight which was right behind me, however it's upperparts appear sandy brown
and this extends onto the birds nape, and it's underparts are quite buffy
contrasting with the throat and this extends around to the undertail coverts. Finally, it appears to have a faint supercilium and it has pale panel in the
secondaries. It also tacked several times, like the
usual British race C.c.curreca, ruling out the race halimodendri which has been proven through DNA to occur on Barra at least once in the recent past.
Having discussed this bird with other birders here, the general feeling is that most of the lesser whitethroats in October and November are blythii and they typically appear around the same time as yellow-browed warblers.
The sandy brown mantle colour continues onto the nape and there is no sharp division between brown mantle and grey head as there is with curreca.
The faint supercillium is obvious in this photo.
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