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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BobTag" data-source="post: 1299171" data-attributes="member: 9076">Hi Mike,Thanks for posting your detailed thoughts, and I agree with much of what you've written. Many of the comments I've read about this bird centre around the fact that it is not a "clear-cut Reed". I agree, however for the many reasons you detailed above, it's also very far from a "clear-cut" Marsh, and I'd suggest there are more pro-Reed than pro-Marsh features.For me, this bird reiterates the difficulty of identifying autumn Marsh Warblers in the field, and that anything other than a classic bird should be left unidentified. It's now easier to ID autumn vagrant Blyth's Reeds than Marsh!I'm less sure, though, about your suggestion that the bird is from "the eastern part of the range". You mention a belief that Reed Warbler colouration is clinal across the range; could you share some more detail on this? I'd be really interested.I'm not making a specific accusation here at all, but there is a bad habit in the UK to suggest autumn birds showing non-typical plumages are "eastern". This seems to happen frequently across a wide range of species, from Willow Warblers to Redstarts. I'm not sure if this is helpful to truly understand the characteristics of out-of-range forms. Such as fuscus Reed Warbler for example.Cheers, BT</blockquote>