Greenish Warblers, like Palla's and Yellow-Browed Warblers? (1 Viewer)

Can it be accepted that Greenish Warblers (on the East coast) are just as common in the UK as Tawny Pipits, Palla's and YB Warblers, Common Rosefinch, Barred Meldious Icterine Warblers ect.?
There just seems to be lots on the East Coast this and last year...

no, definitely not Jake

this year was a very good year, even managed to find one meself!

atb
Tim

I'm not sure how many of the others we get every year, but they must all be well into double figures. Greenish is not so numerous and number fluctuate. Some years are good, others less so. Accepted records of Greenish for each year from 1994-2003 are: 8, 31, 12, 17, 8, 7, 18, 3, 21, 13. So it doesn't yet meet the criteria for removal from the rarities list.

Well done Timmy boy! Helps being on the coast though, I gave Willington a good look, unsurprisingly Canada Goose was as good as it got. My only British Greenish was also along Blakeney, though a nice bright Spring bird instead.

Unfortunately like Tim says, Greenish Warblers aren't the same league as some of the species you mention. A good year for Greenish Warbler may involve 20 birds, whereas Yellow-browed Warblers can reach up to 300 birds in a good Autumn. Greenish Warblers have had a good year due to classic weather systems to produce a large number of 'drift migrants', species that come over the North Sea due to the weather systems during their peak migration south. If this weather system happened now, you would get possibly three times as many Barred Warbler, Icterine Warblers and Common Rosefinches.

Next year could well produce only 1 or 2 Greenish Warblers, where as due to reverse migration, there will probably always be at least 30 Yellow-browed Warblers and double figure counts of Pallas's Warbler, even though they have twice the distance to fly. Tawny Pipits can almost be classed in the same league as Greenish Warblers though.

All the best

James

Bluetail said:

I'm not sure how many of the others we get every year, but they must all be well into double figures. Greenish is not so numerous and number fluctuate. Some years are good, others less so. Accepted records of Greenish for each year from 1994-2003 are: 8, 31, 12, 17, 8, 7, 18, 3, 21, 13. So it doesn't yet meet the criteria for removal from the rarities list.

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Except the criteria are changing. Greenish will almost certainly be one of 10-15 species removed from the BBRC list in the near future.

That's interesting. Any idea what the new criteria are likely to be, Mike, and what species are going?

Bluetail said:

That's interesting. Any idea what the new criteria are likely to be, Mike, and what species are going?

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The ones with the biggest totals (over 300??) to lighten the workload on BBRC.

Everyone says how wonderful the Irish Ctte is but their workload is a fraction of BBRC. Basically, there are too many rares being found these days.

Mike Pennington said:

The ones with the biggest totals (over 300??) to lighten the workload on BBRC.

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So that means potential goodbyes to the following:

Arctic Redpoll
White-winged Black Tern
Alpine Swift
Parrot Crossbill
Rustic Bunting
Red-throated Pipit
Red-rumped Swallow
Greenish Warbler
White-rumped Sandpiper
Little Bittern
Black Kite
Black-winged Stilt

Presumably it won't be quite that simple? One or two of these are not too straightforward to identify!