Wood or Willow Warbler?....shot on 7th August adjacent Epping Forest. (1 Viewer)

[KenM]

Just the two images, had it briefly in the frame before it shot out of view, was taken aback by it's snowball unders, short (limey) tail, long primaries and UTC's. even the lores look pale, also contrasty white edging to the tertials. I am familiar with both species, however just a brief view and two less than perfect shots, with the former being very scarce on passage, has left me wondering whether it's a Wood or a Willow?.....comments welcome.

Cheers

 

[Brian J Small]

Ken

I am surprised you did not ID this as Willow in the field. The images you post have various photographic artefacts that when corrected show it as Willow.

Brian

 

[KenM]

Ken

I am surprised you did not ID this as Willow in the field. The images you post have various photographic artefacts that when corrected show it as Willow.

Brian

I was expecting Willow Warbler Brian, as this would have constituted the first returning bird of the year for me, thus was already in default mode for the species.

Trying to image a fast moving Phyllosc through the leafage was certainly challenging.

In retrospect I was struck by the similarities, therefore I was looking for comments.
What exactly (in your opinion) are the photographic artefacts that favour Willow over Wood?

Cheers

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Hello Ken,
I think Brian means the slightly well saturated image, that together with the (presumed) difficulty of the camera to reproduce finest contrast/hues in the whitish/well lit parts of this warbler. These are just small nuances, but I learned much from this and another recent post about this topic.
Thank you to you Ken for posting this interesting bird, to Brian for the right level of correction and to all others in the recent thread.

 

[Jeff Woad]

There's a nice Wood W shot currently in the 'garden / yard list 2021' thread. Note how rich the yellow is and how much it contrasts with the thick dark green eyestripe and (not pale) lore, combined with the well define dark green crown edge.

 

[Andy Hurley]

At first glance there appears to be the typical hook to the supercilium. With the oversatration and accompanying brightness of the white under parts I can see room for confusion with Wood Warbler. As Brian removed the saturation, the hook disappeared and the yellow streaks in the flank become obvious. An interesting lesson indeed! Thanks for posting this bird Ken.

 

[KenM]

Yes, Cheers Andy, I've imaged Wood Warbler many, many times over the years and they've all looked Classic!

However it does make you wonder what a pallid/grey individual might look like as quoted in Collins.....''Told by saturated dark moss-green upperparts (at times tinged grey)''?

A few from my ''Bridge''

 

[KenM]

From the images that I’ve seen on BF and in the field over the years, where “cross dressing” Chiffies and Willow Warbler seem to be the norm, not to mention coming in brown, grey and olive cosmetics for both.
It strikes me as odd that a paler Wood Warbler could be considered not possible?
After looking “again” at my last posted image I would suggest that everything appears to be more compatible for P.sibilatrix than P.trochilus?....perhaps Brian Small or indeed others could show me the error of my ways?

Cheers 👍