Sunday 18 January 2015

Siberian Chiffchaff, Shapwick

It's been an excellent few days birding/guiding on the Somerset Levels, and i've plenty of photos to post up here, but first here's a few shots of a rather lovely little Siberian Chiffchaff from this morning. It showed well at Shapwick Heath NNR, next to the benches that overlook the Meare Heath scrape, feeding down low at the base of the line of trees. I was first alerted to its presence by its call, a plaintive heet, much flatter than the inflected hooeet or hweet of Common Chiffchaff. On seeing the bird, the cold plumage tones were immediately noticeable, with it frequently looking very grey, and the underparts a dirty white with no yellow, and closer inspection showed slight buffy tones to the cheeks and supercillium, and nice bright green fringes to the primaries and tail feathers.




The video below is hopeless for seeing the bird, but crank up the volume for a recording of the call


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