Our third Subalpine Warbler of the year was a pleasant surprise for Jason on morning trap rounds today, well worth the early start. After an unraced female and an 'Eastern' male, the orangey red underparts, with the colour suffusing almost the entire throat, belly and flanks and the thinner 'moustaches' clinched the ID as our first definitive 'Western' Subalp of the year and measurements also backed up this identification. After the usual processing, it was released in the Obs garden where it was seen later in the morning.
This seemed to upset Alby, our resident Eastern Subalp and the two were seen squabbling over who had the rights to call the Obs garden 'home'. It's hard not to side with Alby after he has been with us for a month, but it would be nice if the two of them could make friends and both hang around for a few days at least. It would be interesting if anyone is able to get a photograph of the two races side by side, I wonder if this has been done in the UK before?
Not many other new birds seemed to arrive today, although the weather was largely pleasant, however with westerly winds and rain forecast for the next couple of days there may not be many birds to report, or perhaps we could get an American vagrant of some sort...
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| No pictures of migrants today, but everyone likes Puffins! |
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