Saturday 19 November 2011

Siberian Chiffchaff at Llyn Coron







Excellent day birding today on Anglesey. A mob of us were at Llyn Coron looking over the lake near the fishermans car park when Chris Jones said he had a pale looking Chiffchaff. I new if we were going to get anywhere with it we would have to get some photos so in I went! It was pretty elusive but appeared 3 times whilst we were there before moving into the deeper Willow scrub. The photos showed a light grey brown colour lacking any green tones. Hint of a wingbar. The underparts were paler without any yellow. The bill was small and along with the legs were black. They look paler fringed in the photos due to being backlit.The ear coverts were a warmer brown colour. It had a long buff not yellow supercillium. There was a slight hint of green fringes only noticeable on the primaries and secodaries.The only yellow visible was a pale wash on the underwing.
Call, hmmm. There was a quiet piping noise coming from it's direction, but hand on heart I couldn't rule out a distant Teal calling! - Marc good luck trying to "tape" it tomorrow!

4 comments:

  1. Wow, given the conditions, they are cracking photos! Well done!

    Zac

    ReplyDelete
  2. (You might not believe this, but the 'verification code' I just had to input to post my last comment was 'tristis'! Mental!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great shots Steve, and full credit to Zac for picking this gem out, what a beaut!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nailed the call today Steve. We actually picked it up on call as it came through following a tit flock. Classic plaintive / mournful - Dunnock / Bullfinchy type call. Superb bird.
    Cheers
    Marc

    ReplyDelete