I spent a few hours at Black Rock, Morfa Bychan today. I
got decent views of the two surf scoters at high tide from the rock itself. I
could just see that one or possibly both had a faint bill pattern and nape patch suggesting
that they are 1 w males – as Mike D suggested
having seen them last week. It will be interesting to see how they moult
as winter unfolds.
Other birds included
a nice velvet close in and 8 Longtails – Elfyn later had 10 of these smart little ducks.
At the southern end of the beach a Black necked and Slav grebe kept each other
company as the tide swept them swiftly downriver and out to sea. Nice to get
side by side views of these. A Great Northern
snorkelled the shallows on the far side of the river channel and two little
gulls, an adult and first winter flew downstream and joined a small feeding
flock of black-heads at the river mouth.
I was surprised to
find a chiffchaff at Carreg Samson. A really striking pale bird with bright
silver undersides and pale brown uppers with a hint of green in the wing, a bright supercillium as well.
It reminded me
of a Bonelli’s warbler (apart from the strong super and eye-stripe) it called
only once – which was how I picked it up. Just a typical chiffchaff call rather
than the bullfinch/dunnock call of Siberian chiffchaff. I did get some awful
pics with my phone (apologies). I also played it recordings of Siberian and common chiffchaff and it responded very enthusiastically to both - as it did to pishing as well! – no help there
then. Any comments on this bird gratefully received
Walking back i noticed a a fresh dead porpoise on the beach - already showing signs of predation. I did search, but there were no red-faced small white gulls to be seen : (
hwyl
Hi Rhys, nice days birding! B N Grebe's a good find.
ReplyDeleteNice one with the Surfies. Did they look very similar to each other? Do you think your original bird is one of these? I wonder if there's an adult female knocking about in Harlech Bay or if that's all the "brown" Surfies there are - at least for the time being...
Interesting Chiff. There's been some interesting information and discussion going on, and there's probably more to be said yet.
Cheers, Mike.
PS: There's a suggestion (a very good one) that it would be very useful to get some DNA from "Bonelli's-like" Chiffies - see the last 2 posts:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.surfbirds.com/forum/showthread.php?12555-Grey-Chiffchaff-using-abietinus-collybita-call/page3
Cheers, Mike.
Rhys,
ReplyDeleteI would expect this to be a 'tristis' from your pics and description. That it gave a 'collybita' type call doesn't rule this out. I'll chat to Kelvin to see if it's feasible to try to get a feather sample from this one - I don't know the site very well or the landowner. I understand the comparison with a Bonelli's but just to add that these would also show a pale head and stronger fringing of the flight feathers.
Phil B
Bryncroes