The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Hugh Dorrington phoned me to say he has had a Whinchat in his plantation. I arrived and failed to see the Whinchat, however, the adjacent sewage works was crawling with migrants.
best were two Icterine Warblers together in a hedge around the edge. Large yellow warblers with heavy bills. Dashed to get Hugh and returned within minutes but inevitably could not relocate the blighters! However got a good supporting cast as under;

At least 4 Spotted Flycatchers
2 Common Whitethroats
1 Lesser Whitethroat
1 Garden Warbler
1 Chiffchaff
6+ Swallows

Nearby Dunsby farm reservoir another Spotted Flycatcher and down the fen a family party of 4 Buzzards.

Ian

note the date this was posted http://pewit.blogspot.com/2009/08/yello ... blers.html

At 8am this morning I met up with Ian at the sewage works and found a single Icterine Warbler in the exact tree that Ian had 2 in yesterday, much larger than the surrounding Phyllos and much less active. No sign of yesterday's Whinchat but plenty of other migrants about again:
5 Whitethroats
1 Lesser Whitethroat
4 Blackcaps
4 or 5 each of Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers
4 Spotted Flies
2 Green Sands
1 Swift southbound
Also a family party of 6 Bullfinches with 2 of them having patches of crimsom starting to show on their breasts. More Robins than yesterday could well have included some migrants.

Nearby on a patch of farmyard manure: 3 Yellow Wagtails, c15 Pied Wagtails and c200 Swallows which were then reduced to 199 as an adult Hobby swept in.

Regards
Hugh Dorrington

Dave and Sue Thorpe visited the site yesterday (Monday) at 10.20 am and saw one Icterine plus all the warblers mentioned in the previous post.

Dave and i returned to the site at 4.00 pm but apart from 2 Spot Flus and 2 whitethroats eveything appreared to have moved on.

3 Swifts over Rippingale were the only other birds of note.

Ian

Just read Graham's post and redirection to yellow warblers. Having read the post I should like to add that none of the observers are inexperienced teenage birders (sadly) and at least two of us are very familiar with Icterine and Melodious Warblers on the continent. There were both Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers in close proximity affording good opportunity for comparison.

Ian

Wow, Any pics? Icky/Melodious can be very tricky, witness recent high profile cases of misidentification of heavily-twitched birds e.g. http://www.surfbirds.com/forum/showthre ... ne+warbler present for several days before the correct diagnosis was reached. An unprecedented inland Lincs double record?

Alex

_________________
Dr Alexander C. Lees
Lecturer in tropical ecology
Manchester Metropolitan University

Lab Associate
Cornell Lab of Ornithology,
Cornell University

http://www.freewebs.com/alexlees/index.htm
@Alexander_Lees

just for info someone has posted pics of the dunsby birds on birdguides, not being a member i cannot access. i have never seen an inland icky before and the autumn birds i have seen have always looked greyish and cream to me but i have only seen about 6 or so autumn birds and do not know if that is typical but the pics should clear up any doubt,

terry whalin

Any more info about these pics? I've searched Birdguides and Surbirds but found nothing

John

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Lincolnshire Birds https://www.flickr.com/photos/120340949 ... 8078912016
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Contact: recorder_north@lincsbirdclub.co.uk

john i just typed icterine warbler and the first item was a description site click on then scroll down to recent pics and it says 2 sightings dunsby posted 14.00 hrs so it must be a link into birdguides
which i cannot enter

terry

That's just a link to the report not a picture. I'd be interested to see some though

John

_________________
Lincolnshire Birds https://www.flickr.com/photos/120340949 ... 8078912016
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Contact: recorder_north@lincsbirdclub.co.uk

A quick visit to the sewage works at Dunsby today at 8am. No sign of Icterine Warbler and all the Spot Flys had gone (but the breeding birds are still in Dunsby village), several Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Willow Warblers, including some nice yellow ones. Also 1 Whitethroat and 1 Lesser Whitethroat.

I expect that this site will now fade back into obscurity but if anyone wants to visit they are very welcome. Turn onto the concrete road at TF107272, signed Aveland Trees. Past the shed. Park on the grass just before sewage works gates (Don't block entrance). Walk over the cattle grid and the track to the left takes you around the sewage works. The Ickys were in the taller hedge at the end of the track. If you see anything good call in at the Aveland Trees shed and let me know.

Hugh Dorrington

This record is pretty amazing. As far as I can ascertain the only inland Lincs record prior to this one was near Gainsborough 20th June 1970, a bird which was trapped. Thus two birds inland at the same site is astonishing. It would be great to see descriptions of these birds in the absence of photos. Are they available?

John

_________________
Lincolnshire Birds https://www.flickr.com/photos/120340949 ... 8078912016
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Contact: recorder_north@lincsbirdclub.co.uk

Icterine Warbler is an LBC description species, meaning that it will not be published without a description that is accepted by the LBC records committee. So if the description(s) are good, then they'll be accepted.

This seems a timely opportunity to remind anyone with any outstanding descriptions from 2008 to please send them in as soon as humanly possible. Production of the report will be seriously stalled and ultimately incomplete without descriptions of many local rarities. If you are not sure whether anything you found last year needs a description, please see http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk/lbc_recordsrequired.htm .

Thanks,

PF.

I thought I had sent a description as part of a reply to Alex's email from my works computer but I see it failed to get on.

30th August. Dunsby Sewage treatment works. Having failed to locate a Whinchat that Hugh Dorrington had seen in the adjacent plantation earlier in the day I walked around two sides of the sewage works to find a fall of migrants. More Robins than I would have expected plus at least 4 Spotted Flycatchers and a variety of warblers. I noted two birds in my binoculars in the bare branches of a hedge tree that also held a Chiffchaff and a Whitethroat that looked much larger than the Chiffchaff with heavy dagger like bills and very bright yellow green plumage especially on the belly. In the two minutes or so it took me to fetch my telescope from the car the birds had disappeared and indeed that was the only time I saw two together. however one briefly re-appeared in the same tree and I was able to observe it through my telescope (Swarowski HD 80) at about 20x magnification for a few seconds at arange of about 35 metres. Apart from the bright yellow belly the dagger-like bill was striking quite unlike a Phylloscopus warbler.A very obvious eye-stripe went well behind the back of the eye. It also appeared to have very long wings with the tips protuding well past the base of the tail and obvious grey patches on the wings contrasting with the olive green of the rest of the wings and back. I could not really see the colour of the legs. After a few seconds it flew and I failed to relocate either bird that day.

On August 31 I returned and at 0745 saw the bright yellow warbler as I pulled up in the car peched next to a Common Whitethroat. Both birds were the same size but both flew before I could stop the car and get my binoculars on them. Later I met Hugh Dorrington and about 8.30am the bird briefly alighted on the same tree as I had seen it yesterday but this time only 20 metres away. Hugh spotted it first, so he probably had the longer view but once I had established that it was the Icterine by its size, brighter plumage and heavy bill I tried to get my telescope on to it. Unfortunately it failed to oblige and flew in to cover before I could focus the telescope and did not reappear whist I was at the site. Despite flying off it was not as twitchy as the Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers at the site, the former of which constantly flicked their tails.

Despite another visit to the site late in the afternoon I did not see either bird again. The only other UK icterine I have seen was one at Abberton Reservoir in the mid 1980's that showed itself to a large party from the Colchester Natural History society. I have seen Icterine in Holland and Belgium and lots of Melodious Warblers in France and Spain so I am confident about the identification of at least one of the Dunsby birds!

Regards,

Ian

Hi Ian

Unfortunately, your description of "A very obvious eye-stripe went well behind the back of the eye" is pretty indicitive of a Willow Warbler. Young Willow Warblers are actually brighter yellow than Icterines, hence many claims of Icterine Warbler turn out to be Willow Warblers. You'd think a bird named Icterine would be strikingly yellow, but its not the case!

Some Icterine Warblers:

http://www.fairislebirdobs.co.uk/Sighti ... rbler1.jpg

http://www.birdsireland.com/images/2007 ... rine02.jpg

http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures ... off=216425

http://tarsiger.com/gallery/index.php?s ... e=englanti

Note that they are not actually that yellow, and the supercillium is indistinct, especially behind the eye.

These are some examples of yellow Willow Warblers. The last one especially seems to show a heavy bill.
http://www.portlandbirdobs.org.uk/bp_wi ... 07_450.jpg

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... -Abg6IjNDw

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... -QbH8P3TDw