Warbler Central Japan 22May (1 Viewer)

In my usual spot in Nara City on 22 May, I found this warbler.

Neither the photos nor the recording are good, but I'm hoping that the experts of BF will be able to put the two together to give me an ID.

On migration in autumn and spring, we get a few birds of the Arctic Warbler spp in the small area I go to regularly (circumference about 3km). It is about 100m asl, and has light woodland and water; it is attached to woodlands that go a few hundred metres higher.

When the Arctic Warbler split came to my awareness, I started trying to record the birds that I saw - when they made a noise, which they mostly don't. And I've never had any song, just the basic call. All the birds I have recorded over the past three years (maybe ten in total) have been Kamchatka Leaf Warblers (O-mushikui; Big Warbler in Japanese). This has a strong dzit sound of one syllable.

Yesterday's bird is very late for our location. I am sure that this sound is from this bird because the sound came first, and that's why I looked for the bird. There were a lot of other bird sounds - principally a Narcissus Flycatcher which seems to have settled in to breed (a first in this spot) and Japanese Bush Warblers, as well as Bulbuls and White-eyes; and for some of the time there was a helicopter. Thus, although with my voice recorder I got about one or two minutes while this bird was sounding (that I could distinguish with my ears), only a few seconds of the recording had clearly distinguishable sound from this bird.

On the attached recording, after a Bulbul screech, you can hear the warbler call three times: and it is clearly a two-syllable, zit-zit sound, and softer than the Kamchatka Warbler (examinandus) sound.

I thought this might be the Japanese Leaf Warbler (xanthodryas), but I have downloaded recordings of all three members of the Arctic Warbler split, and they all seem to have a one-syllable call.

I think I have also seen a Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (Pale-legged split) in this spot several years ago, but this also has a different call.

If anyone can help, I will be very grateful. I don't think it's anything rare, but I really don't think it can be Kamchatka Leaf as all the other birds I have recorded had basically the same call.

Leaf Warblers are tricky on a good view, doubt this can be done visually, someone may know it by voice though.

A

andyadcock said:

Leaf Warblers are tricky on a good view, doubt this can be done visually, someone may know it by voice though.

Click to expand...

Hi Andy: as I said both the photos and sound are poor, but I'm hoping that in combination someone will know.

The photos are mainly there to show that it is a warbler, but there may be one or two details which help (eyebrow length, for example).

And my location should help. I spent an hour on xeno-canto on likely species but nothing came up (but, to repeat, I don't think it's rare - I would love for it to be Japanese Leaf Warbler, which would add one to my list for this spot without being weird, since they breed rather higher up in the area - but not easily visible).

By the way, our Golden Week holiday (mainly cultural) involved a ferry to Vladivostok with half a day in the botanical garden there, and two days in Irkutsk with a few hours over two days in one of the islands in the river which had a lot of birds. I haven't finished sorting quite yet, but in a day or two I will post a dozen or so questions, with a couple of warblers on the menu. I will be counting on your help, although I appreciate that StP is quite a long way away. We had a good time in our few days in Russia - we thought it would be interesing, but it was interesing and fun, with good people. Only had a machine gun pointed at us once, and saw wolves, too.

MacNara said:

Hi Andy: as I said both the photos and sound are poor, but I'm hoping that in combination someone will know.

The photos are mainly there to show that it is a warbler, but there may be one or two details which help (eyebrow length, for example).

And my location should help. I spent an hour on xeno-canto on likely species but nothing came up (but, to repeat, I don't think it's rare - I would love for it to be Japanese Leaf Warbler, which would add one to my list for this spot without being weird, since they breed rather higher up in the area - but not easily visible).

By the way, our Golden Week holiday (mainly cultural) involved a ferry to Vladivostok with half a day in the botanical garden there, and two days in Irkutsk with a few hours over two days in one of the islands in the river which had a lot of birds. I haven't finished sorting quite yet, but in a day or two I will post a dozen or so questions, with a couple of warblers on the menu. I will be counting on your help, although I appreciate that StP is quite a long way away. We had a good time in our few days in Russia - we thought it would be interesing, but it was interesing and fun, with good people. Only had a machine gun pointed at us once, and saw wolves, too.

Click to expand...

Russia gets a bad press, sometimes deserved sometimes not.

I haven't been to the East yet despite having friends on Sakhalin but it's literally a continent away despite being the same country!

I'm always glad to help if I can, contrary to recent public opinion!


A

andyadcock said:

Russia gets a bad press, sometimes deserved sometimes not.

I haven't been to the East yet despite having friends on Sakhalin but it's literally a continent away despite being the same country!

Click to expand...

Well, combine it with a week in Japan - skip Tokyo, but come to Kansai (Osaka, Kyoto, Nara). There are bargain airlines that do various routes in the area - we used S-7 and T-Way. I'm sure we could give you a futon in Nara for a few days if you came this way.

We'll surely go to Russia again. As you doubtless know, Russia and Japan are still at loggerheads about some islands at the north of Japan. But at an individual level, it can be rather different.

In Nagasaki, where I lived for a few years and where my wife is from, the best non-Japanese restaurant was a Russian restaurant set up by a Japanese 'coloniser' who returned, and whose children eventually added a 50% French component to the place (it still exists, but much reduced for various reasons).

And one of my wife's fondest memories of her middle school is a teacher who taught her Russian words that she could still remember 40 years later. He had been just a Japanese private told to go there by his government.

With our modern political attitudes, it seems strange to say that an ordinary soldier in a colonial army could have had their mind opened by the experience, and feel an enlargement of their world view.

But it happened and I have been told the same by British soldiers who fought against the Japanese ('we were told to go to Burma and kill them, and they were told the same about us; if we ordinary soldiers could have talked, it would have been over in days,' I was told by an old soldier when I was about 20).

And the birds, of course, know nothing of these boundaries, which is why some of us like them, I guess.

Anyway, last off-topic post on this thread!! Promise.

A generous offer, many thanks



A

To me it sounds like a Two-barred Warbler. It had a disyllabic call and isn't there even the song of it audible?

edit: forget a link i was going to post:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/327191

CARERY said:

To me it sounds like a Two-barred Warbler. It had a disyllabic call and isn't there even the song of it audible?

edit: forget a link i was going to post:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/327191

Click to expand...

Hello Carery, thank you for replying.

Two-barred Warbler would be off-course where I am in Nara City, Japan, but only by a fairly short distance (one or two hundred km east of Hegura Island which has all sorts of rarities). I hadn't considered it as a possibility. But, as people say, there must be all sorts of very occasional visitors which are missed because they are not out in the open, and are not expected.

As I said, it was the call which alerted me to the presence of the bird, not vice versa. It was definitely not a call I had heard before in this place (where I have gone at least a hundred days a year for ten years). But I am not a very 'auditory' person.

I am less sure about the possibility of the song being on the recording as well as the call. There were a lot of other 'normal' birds around, including lots of Japanese White-eye (year-round, and breed here) which has quite a repertory of warbles and so on. My ears attached the bi-syllabic click to the area where I found the bird with the camera, but not any of the other songs or sounds.

But I attach the whole recording anyway, with camera clicks and comments to self edited out, so you can judge for yourself about the song.

I checked on xeno-canto for the call only (i.e. without the song) of Two-barred and found this recording which does indeed seem more like what I heard and recorded than any of the Arctic split threesome or other alternatives like Sakhalin Leaf / Pale-legged (and it's definitely not Eastern Crowned).

And as I said, the date is odd (very late), so it might be something that got lost, and might be something a little unusual for our location (a Yellow-browed Warbler spent the whole of last winter in the park at Osaka Castle about 20 or 30km from here, for example).

I think it's not the song of Two-barred Warbler, but the call sounds good to me. About the late date, I don't know much about spring phenology of Two-barred but the Western twin Greenish Warbler just starts to arrive at their breeding grounds now. So why not a migrant Two-barred still on it's way?

It may be an Arctic Warbler giving a two-note call. This call is common among birds on migration in Hong Kong in spring, but seems to be less common in autumn (when most give a single note). Compare the calls on this recording: http://www.xeno-canto.org/140995

It doesn't sound like Two-barred to me, which has a call more similar to Yellow-browed, with obvious change in frequency: http://www.xeno-canto.org/327189

I'm interested by your comment about Kamchatka LW. I still haven't heard this, but I have always expected it not to be a single syllable, but to be two or more syllables, e.g. http://www.xeno-canto.org/288615
To my ear this is similar to your recording. In fact, if you hadn't mentioned that most of your birds are Kamchatka, I'd have suggested that the single-syllable calls you mention would be Arctic and that this recording was worth considering Kamchatka!

johnallcock said:

It may be an Arctic Warbler giving a two-note call. This call is common among birds on migration in Hong Kong in spring, but seems to be less common in autumn (when most give a single note). Compare the calls on this recording: http://www.xeno-canto.org/140995

It doesn't sound like Two-barred to me, which has a call more similar to Yellow-browed, with obvious change in frequency: http://www.xeno-canto.org/327189

I'm interested by your comment about Kamchatka LW. I still haven't heard this, but I have always expected it not to be a single syllable, but to be two or more syllables, e.g. http://www.xeno-canto.org/288615
To my ear this is similar to your recording. In fact, if you hadn't mentioned that most of your birds are Kamchatka, I'd have suggested that the single-syllable calls you mention would be Arctic and that this recording was worth considering Kamchatka!

Click to expand...

Hi John,

As I said, a couple of years ago I started recording (when I remember to take the recorder and when the birds make a sound, neither of which are guaranteed), and all the ones I managed to get have basically the same sound which seemed to me to match online Kamchatka (I have downloaded samples of all three Arctic Warblers for reference). Warblers are few in number in this spot, and only for a couple of weeks in each season (spring, autumn). Also, we go abroad over Golden Week (29 April - 7 May basically), so I miss a period when such birds are more likely, which doesn't help.

It might be that we only get Kamchatka, and that Japanese Leaf for some reason doesn't like our little wood (I can find Eastern Crowned on migration not far away, but never in this spot for example). But I feel that the bird I saw in late August last year was probably not Kamchatka (usually mid-late October), but since it didn't make a sound there's nothing I can do, and the timing of this bird makes me feel the same.

Anyway, I attach a recording of the sound I take to be Kamchatka. I think it's different from the call with which I started this post, and it seemed to me different from the likely candidates as heard via xeno-canto. The Kamchatka sound seems harder and more of a one-sound call - dzit - while the sound here is softer and more of a two-sound call - zit-zit.

As you know, we have a very small range of warblers in Japan, unless you spend long days on Hegura Island, so I have almost no experience of the sounds of a variety of these birds.

MacNara said:

In my usual spot in Nara City on 22 May, I found this warbler.

Neither the photos nor the recording are good, but I'm hoping that the experts of BF will be able to put the two together to give me an ID.

On migration in autumn and spring, we get a few birds of the Arctic Warbler spp in the small area I go to regularly (circumference about 3km). It is about 100m asl, and has light woodland and water; it is attached to woodlands that go a few hundred metres higher.

When the Arctic Warbler split came to my awareness, I started trying to record the birds that I saw - when they made a noise, which they mostly don't. And I've never had any song, just the basic call. All the birds I have recorded over the past three years (maybe ten in total) have been Kamchatka Leaf Warblers (O-mushikui; Big Warbler in Japanese). This has a strong dzit sound of one syllable.

Yesterday's bird is very late for our location. I am sure that this sound is from this bird because the sound came first, and that's why I looked for the bird. There were a lot of other bird sounds - principally a Narcissus Flycatcher which seems to have settled in to breed (a first in this spot) and Japanese Bush Warblers, as well as Bulbuls and White-eyes; and for some of the time there was a helicopter. Thus, although with my voice recorder I got about one or two minutes while this bird was sounding (that I could distinguish with my ears), only a few seconds of the recording had clearly distinguishable sound from this bird.

On the attached recording, after a Bulbul screech, you can hear the warbler call three times: and it is clearly a two-syllable, zit-zit sound, and softer than the Kamchatka Warbler (examinandus) sound.

I thought this might be the Japanese Leaf Warbler (xanthodryas), but I have downloaded recordings of all three members of the Arctic Warbler split, and they all seem to have a one-syllable call.

I think I have also seen a Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (Pale-legged split) in this spot several years ago, but this also has a different call.

If anyone can help, I will be very grateful. I don't think it's anything rare, but I really don't think it can be Kamchatka Leaf as all the other birds I have recorded had basically the same call.

Click to expand...

Hi MacNara,

I hope I can help with a few things.

I have some very basic tools for generating sonograms, though this one has come out 'dirty' due to the quality of the recording. That said, you can still see a few useful things on it. The lower red marks I have added are at approximately 4500 Hz, and the upper ones at approximately 7500 Hz. As the call of Japanese Leaf Warbler all falls below 5000 Hz, you can at least confidently rule that species out by call.

I'm finding it a bit hard to judge the quality of the call on this recording, but do think it is 'there or thereabouts' for a doubled-up borealis call (as suggested by John above). It clearly lasks the rasped/grating quality of Kamchatka Leaf Warbler (which is evident on your call recording, and should show as a sequence/string of clicks on a sonogram). As regards frequency, it is also perfectly 'within range' for Arctic Warbler.

Arctic Warblers are still passing Taiwan in the very last days of May (with stragglers into June), so the date of this bird would be by no means late for that species (arguably at peak).

Steve

Audacity and Ravenlite from Cornell labs are free and great for producing sonagrams

Now with a little more time and better headphones I absolutely agree it is no Two-barred. What has gone into me :eek!:8-P Sorry for misleading!

Indeed the song I took for Two-barred (twice between 1:03 - 1:11 in record from post 8, less clear in OP) sounds good for Kamchatka Leaf which I have to admitt I've never seen nor heard. But still, if compared with this recording (http://www.xeno-canto.org/134358) the song as well as the call are a good match, no?

I took the freedom to produce a (rather blurred) sonogram showing song and calls from MacNara compared with those from Xeno-Canto

There is an interesting structure to the call which might help - I'm off out now (birding)

Like an idiot I cropped out the scale on the frequency analysis - its 4700-7020kHz

SteveMM said:

I have some very basic tools for generating sonograms, though this one has come out 'dirty' due to the quality of the recording. That said, you can still see a few useful things on it. The lower red marks I have added are at approximately 4500 Hz, and the upper ones at approximately 7500 Hz. As the call of Japanese Leaf Warbler all falls below 5000 Hz, you can at least confidently rule that species out by call.

I'm finding it a bit hard to judge the quality of the call on this recording, but do think it is 'there or thereabouts' for a doubled-up borealis call (as suggested by John above). It clearly lasks the rasped/grating quality of Kamchatka Leaf Warbler (which is evident on your call recording, and should show as a sequence/string of clicks on a sonogram). As regards frequency, it is also perfectly 'within range' for Arctic Warbler.

Arctic Warblers are still passing Taiwan in the very last days of May (with stragglers into June), so the date of this bird would be by no means late for that species (arguably at peak).

Click to expand...

Hi Steve and Jane:

First, Jane: the recordings were edited with Audacity (to cut out the camera clicks and so on). But even if I have a sonogram, I wouldn't know what to do with it (i.e. I wouldn't know what it meant; I don't know what a particular species should look like, and it's too late to begin such a study, I think). I often read your posts even though they are about an area I don't know (north-west England) because they are so enthusiatic and intelligent. But this is like a weekend karaoke singer (me) admiring the original artist (you). You are a professor of ornithology, and I'm just someone who uses an (admittedly increasing) interest in birds as an excuse to get out into the fresh air, take a walkand enjoy our planet. Thank you very much anyway.

And Steve: thank you so much for taking the trouble to do this analysis and explain what it means.

Of the three Arctic Warbler species, borealis is the least likely to be seen in Japan (but not at all out of the question).

When Arctic was one species, the Japanese name was 'Meboso-mushikui' which means 'Long-eyed Insect-eater' - the Japanese for 'Warbler' is insect-eater which obviously leads to confusion with flycatchers, and I suppose 'long-eyed' means 'long-browed'.

When Arctic was split, xanthodryas got the Meboso-mushikui name, but in English its name is Japanese Leaf Warbler, since it breeds in Japan south of Hokkaido.

The examinandus ssp which is Kamchatka Leaf Warbler got the name O-mushikui which means 'Big Warbler'. It breeds in Hokkaido and north to the Kamchatka Peninsula.

And the bird which got to keep the English name 'Arctic Warbler', borealis, is in Japanese Ko-mushikui, which means 'Little Warbler'.

It would make sense if borealis was the last of the ssp to come through, since it goes the furthest north to the places which will unfreeze after winter the latest. So, for me, this would be late for a Kamchatka Leaf, but it might not be for borealis (now Arctic Warbler)

And it might be that Japanese Leaf (xanthodryas) which breeds here, doesn't stop on our lower hills (we are about 100m to 300m, but there are much higher hills and mountains not far away).

So, if this bird were borealis, it would be a tick for me in this spot, at least as a definite ID, since some non-singing and non-calling birds from previous years could have been one of the ssp other than Kamchatka (examinandus) (I was particularly annoyed that the bird I saw in late August last year didn't call or sing).

CARERY said:

Now with a little more time and better headphones I absolutely agree it is no Two-barred. What has gone into me :eek!:8-P Sorry for misleading!

Indeed the song I took for Two-barred (twice between 1:03 - 1:11 in record from post 8, less clear in OP) sounds good for Kamchatka Leaf which I have to admitt I've never seen nor heard. But still, if compared with this recording (http://www.xeno-canto.org/134358) the song as well as the call are a good match, no?

I took the freedom to produce a (rather blurred) sonogram showing song and calls from MacNara compared with those from Xeno-Canto

Click to expand...

I'm almost as certain as I could be that any song on my recordings was not from the warbler (most songs are Japanese White-eye). I looked for it because of its call and the direction I heard the call coming from, and I'm positive that no song came from there.

And as Steve MM said, I think the rasped/grating quality of Kamchatka is missing. All the previous calls I've managed to record in this spot have had this quality, but in this bird it was missing (even if it wasn't a doubled sound). I really think it isn't Kamchatka, and borealis would fit as it's a possible migrant here. Iin this small 3km circumference spot I have over ten years seen 125 species which given the Japanese total of about 550 including pelagics is pretty neat, especially give we are about as far from the sea as you can get in Japan (about 40km).

MacNara said:

I'm almost as certain as I could be that any song on my recordings was not from the warbler (most songs are Japanese White-eye). I looked for it because of its call and the direction I heard the call coming from, and I'm positive that no song came from there.

And as Steve MM said, I think the rasped/grating quality of Kamchatka is missing. All the previous calls I've managed to record in this spot have had this quality, but in this bird it was missing (even if it wasn't a doubled sound). I really think it isn't Kamchatka, and borealis would fit as it's a possible migrant here. Iin this small 3km circumference spot I have over ten years seen 125 species which given the Japanese total of about 550 including pelagics is pretty neat, especially give we are about as far from the sea as you can get in Japan (about 40km).

Click to expand...

A acknowledge that the bird in question wasn't singing. But still there is a song in the recording that sounds (and looks in sonogram) like Kamchatka Leaf Warbler. Might be another bird? Anyway, interesting threat to follow...

I agree with Carery that this has developed into a very interesting thread. I am very interested to understand more about the ID of these species (as all three could occur here in HK) so it's useful to discuss in this way.

MacNara said:

Anyway, I attach a recording of the sound I take to be Kamchatka. I think it's different from the call with which I started this post, and it seemed to me different from the likely candidates as heard via xeno-canto. The Kamchatka sound seems harder and more of a one-sound call - dzit - while the sound here is softer and more of a two-sound call - zit-zit.

Click to expand...

Thanks for attaching the recording. I agree that this sounds right for Kamchatka. I find it interesting how different people hear this in different ways - to me, this doesn't sound like a single syllable but a very rapid series of clicks (rather like a flycatcher but faster). Perhaps this is because my frame of reference is the 'dzit' call of Arctic Warbler.

I've attached a recording and sonogram of a bird I recorded last week. This is typical of the double call we hear frequently from Arctic Warblers in spring. I have no idea why we do not seem to get these also in autumn, or whether they are from a different population compared to the single-note call.

This call seems to be similar to your recording - the frequency range (around 4500 - 7000 Hz) also seems very similar to the range given in Steve's sonogram of your recording.

Jane Turner said:

There is an interesting structure to the call which might help - I'm off out now (birding)

Like an idiot I cropped out the scale on the frequency analysis - its 4700-7020kHz

Click to expand...

Thanks, Jane. I use Audacity to amplify the sound on recordings, but an older and more familiar (to me at least) application (Praat) to look at the actual sound. This is just habit, as I've had to use Praat for other things in the past. Obviously, it would make far more sense to use just the one (newer) application!