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Warbler - West London (1 Viewer)

John Fordham

Well-known member
Good morning all

I saw this warbler yesterday in the doom and gloom and, annoyingly, wouldn't turn its body for a front view before flying off. I think it is a Whitethroat. Could you confirm.

Many thanks
John
 

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from what I can see on the picture, admittedly not much, it looks a lot more like a willow warbler or a chiffchaff, and certainly isn't safely identified. A front view wouldn't be necessary to confirm whitethroat, did it have rusty brown wings and a black tail with white edges?
 
Blatantly a whitethroat!

blatantly a warbler, but not blatantly a whitethroat, nor even blatantly a sylvia warbler. Computer screens are notorious for translating what we see into complete nonsense, but what I see on mine is an olive brown bird with a pale supercilium.
 
I must say I'm not sure that its a Whitethroat - the thing that looks like a puffed out pale throat is actually vegetation. It is a warbler :)
 
To me it looks blatantly like whitethroat, on my screen the 'rusty brown wings' stand out like a sore thumb.

and on mine I can't see any rust colour, I think we'll all just have to agree on warbler species. It's always the problem of trying to identify birds from photos, in the field there would never be confusion between a whitethroat and a willow warbler!
 
from what I can see on the picture, admittedly not much, it looks a lot more like a willow warbler or a chiffchaff, and certainly isn't safely identified. A front view wouldn't be necessary to confirm whitethroat, did it have rusty brown wings and a black tail with white edges?

Hi Nick,
I know that I am hopeless on birdsongs (as well as IDs) but I do know that it didn't have a Chiffchaff song. I've been trying to learn the Willow Warbler song and it didn't sound like one (I don't think:h?:). Not familiar (yet) with Whitethroat song. When I got home, I played recordings of Whitethroat but, to be honest (old age creeping on), couldn't really remember song of my bird.

To help answer your other questions, attached are a couple of other pictures. Both, apart from being cropped, haven't been enhanced - the 2nd one was deliberately over-exposed trying to get something reasonable in murky conditions.

Cheers
John
 

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Whilst Whitethroat is an obvious "first call" (due to apparent white throat!) I'll join the minority in saying it looks more like a phyllosc (most probably Chiffchaff) to me - rounded not peaked head shape, thin bill, slightly pot-bellied appearance - and what looks like a well-marked supercilium to me, although you can only make out a part of this behind the eye.

Edit - I now see new pics have been posted!
 

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Looks like a Chiff now :)

Another lesson in the benefit of putting up more than one picture!

La-di-la. I just don't know Jane. I'm convinced that this bird had a melodious song that wasn't that of a Chiff but maybe I'm just going batty.

On a lighter note, I did manage to nail the ID of this Wheatear (below) yesterday;)

Cheers
John
 

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La-di-la. I just don't know Jane. I'm convinced that this bird had a melodious song that wasn't that of a Chiff but maybe I'm just going batty.

On a lighter note, I did manage to nail the ID of this Wheatear (below) yesterday;)

Cheers
John

Trust what you saw/heard in the field - it could be WW, though it does look like a Chiff.

Iberian Chiff? :)
 
yes, these pictures look much more like it! You should always post all the pictures you have for an id, the 'best' one is not always the most helpful one.

Love your nailed wheatear though, still haven't seen one this year, they seem to be later migrants in this part of France.
 
Is that primary projection not long enough to make it a Willow Warbler? Must admit WW was my gut reaction when i looked at the first pic

Jan
 
Is that primary projection not long enough to make it a Willow Warbler? Must admit WW was my gut reaction when i looked at the first pic

Jan

I agree, WW was my gut reaction too, something about the shape just looks right, and the poster says it didn't sing like a chiffchaff. But going solely from the photos, there isn't enough in them to be certain which one it is.
 
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