Two-barred (Greenish Warbler) at Orford, a first for Suffolk: Mark Cornish

Two-barred (Greenish) Warbler Phylloscopus plumbeitarsus October 13th 2019 at Orford A first for Suffolk

Mark Cornish

The Two-barred Greenish Warbler, Orford Quay, Sunday 13th October 2019 - first for Suffolk and eighth for Britain. Photo taken by Sean Nixon at 12:25.

We all wait for autumn, however, with persistent strong winds of a westerly nature, it would be fair to say it had got to mid-October and autumn was flatly passing by without a lot of ornithological interest on the Suffolk coast. There had been Suffolk’s earliest-ever Pallas’s Warbler Phylloscopus proregulus (top-trumping a bird I’d found at East Lane in 2016 by four days), the normal scattering of Yellow-browed Warblers Phylloscopus inornatus , a couple of Barred Warblers Sylvia nisoria and some Ring Ouzels Turdus torquatus - and that was it really in a nutshell! There hadn’t been any real decent weather for seawatching and any scarce seabirds were confined solely to birds off East Lane and Thorpeness.

I’d been pretty much laid up in bed for two days with, well not just the ‘man’ version, but actual flu - which wasn’t as bad as it could have been, as there were few birds about as previously mentioned and the weather wasn’t that enticing for cycling. However, on Sunday morning I felt a bit better and not wanting another day of moping around in my pants, sweating with achy limbs, was itching just to get outside for an hour or two. I decided to have a couple of hours birding without going too mad. Now I don’t stray far from the vicinity of the Alde Estuary these days and going to see a bird at Minsmere constitutes a major twitch in my eyes. So, it was a toss

of a coin on heads – check Orford, or tails – check Aldeburgh. I’d told BINSBIRDER that I fancy Orford at the start of October. I’d developed a small circuit over the last fortnight taking in some impressive areas of habitat and the previous weekend had: Yellow-browed Warbler, Firecrest Regulus ignicapilla and three Ring Ouzels (so as good as anywhere else on the Suffolk coast) – so heads you win – Orford it was.

I arrived at Orford at about 08:45, it was a grey and overcast morning with a moderate southerly breeze which was forecast to strengthen throughout the morning. My initial wander around the village revealed very little migrant activity and the ‘birding force’ didn’t feel strong. There were several Blackbirds Turdus merula kicking about, but no ‘crests’, ‘Chiffs’ or any vis-migging going on! Despite this it was just pleasant to actually be out and, well, you never know. I continued my normal route across the marsh to the river wall and then back to check the Quay area where there was a good number of Meadow Pipits Anthus pratensis and Pied Wagtails Motacilla alba in the muddy fields. The quay car park and adjacent meadow area are bordered with some taller trees along with lower shrubs and offer some decent passerine cover – indeed I’d seen Pallas’s and Yellow-browed Warblers in this area in years gone by, and Pied Fly Ficedula hypoleuca this year and last year. The ‘quay meadow’ area seemed to offer the best shelter from the wind and when I got there some 20 Blackbirds flew out, but otherwise it was pretty quiet. With little bird activity, my mind wandered to what time the nearby Riverside Cafe opened and about getting a coffee. I thought it opened at 09:30 – happy days – that was only in five minutes time – so decided to hang fire out of the wind in the meadow area until it opened. Never has the decision to wait to get an over-priced cup of coffee proved such a good one (perhaps the birding force was with me!). With very few birds calling I was drawn to a distinctive trisyllabic call coming from the cover next to me. It was something like a cross between Pied Wagtail and House Sparrow Passer domesticus and I just couldn’t place it in my head (go to link below of my short recording taken on my phone). Call of bird recorded 09:40, October 13th, Orford Quay - Two-barred (Greenish) Warbler https://www.xeno-canto.org/502436

To give it its due, it kept calling but I just couldn’t see anything. A couple of minutes passed without hearing the call again when I noticed a small bird flick above my head. Before I raised my bins, with my naked eye, I could see a small green and white warbler, two obvious pale wing-bars and a long broad supercilium and thought “nice - a Yellow-browed”, not linking it with the call I’d heard minutes earlier. As it was close, I chose to get my camera out first and try and get a picture or two - I hadn’t managed to photograph either of the Yellow-broweds I’d found last week (Aldeburgh and Orford). As I unzipped the camera case, I heard it give the trisyllabic call – now that’s no Yellow-browed I thought (!), aborted the camera idea and quickly got my bins on the bird. At this point it was moving above me only some 3-4 metres away, but partially obscured by vegetation. It wasn’t amazingly active, but was very vocal. I quickly noted that it had plain tertials, obvious double wing-bars with the greater covert bar being long and evenly broad along the length. It was proportionally rather like a Yellow-browed, if somewhat stouterbilled in appearance. The upperparts were olive-green and the tertials were plain and uniform with the fringes to the secondaries a brighter green. It had a long, broad supercilium and white underparts with a slight yellowy flush to the face. There was a fair bit racing through my mind at this point, but I knew I had to get some (in fact any) pictures of this bird. The lens to my bridge camera was misted up (!) so I quickly wiped it and obtained about ten shots through vegetation and hoped for the best! There was no time to review them at this point so I just gathered what features I could on the bird (later I realised that five were in focus and they did document some of the features – all are on my blog – https://www.blogger.com/profile/12461133038696480946). The next thing was that I pulled out my phone, set the voice recorder going, and, holding it as high I could towards the bird, took a short recording of its distinctive call – unbelievably, although quiet, you could clearly hear the bird call three times on the recording without much background

Now all this happened pretty quickly (over about five minutes) and I hadn’t had that much time to actually think “what is it?” I watched it disappear out of view, but was fairly sure that it hadn’t gone far, so I went into a reflective period and a process of “what it wasn’t”, filtered through my head in a very short period of time:

• Yellow-browed had been ruled out straight away – plain tertials, call, etc • It wasn’t right for Arctic (P. borealis) – structurally all wrong, the call, the bill, the long broad wing-bar – so dropped that quickly. • Greenish (P. trochiloides) – call right, isn’t it a bit late? (not sure?) and that greater covert bar was long, broad and parallel! Not the short, tapering wing-bars I’d seen on Greenish

Warblers before. • At this point my heart rate went up somewhat (not good for a man who had a major heart attack in 2018). I’d seen pictures, read the odd ID account but never actually seen a Twobarred Greenish. • So, there it was, a call of ‘mahoosive’ proportions by someone who’d never even seen one - “I think I might have a Two-barred Greenish…!?”

Now let’s just hold some horses and all calm down I thought; I’ll phone a few people – well that idea fell flat – none of them answered (I bet some wish they had!) Only one phoned back – Richard Drew – who tells me that my voice was a little shaky: “All right Richard, how busy are you?” “Yeah pretty, I’ve got people over, why?” “Well I’ve got this weird warbler at Orford, two wing bars like a Yellow-browed but plain tertials, strange wagtail/sparrow like call” “That does sound interesting…” “I know it sounds stupid – but I think it might be Two-barred Greenish” “Blimey, is it still there? I’ll phone Dave Fairhurst and see if he can get down as well and call you back” I also phoned my big brother briefly for a bit of sanity and now it had just gone 09:50 and I’d heard it call a couple of times more but not seen it again. I quickly looked at a couple of photos online, checked some features, checked my photos and downloaded a call and felt that it probably was Suffolk’s first Two-barred (Greenish) Warbler. On the back of my camera my pictures seemed to show:

• A long, parallel, evenly-broad greater covert wing-bar extending to the scapulars formed by extensive pale tips to seven greater coverts. • A long, broad pale, supercilium, being less distinct in front of the eye with dark loral stripe. • Plain, uniform tertials with just very narrow slightly paler grey fringes. • Brighter-green fringes to the secondaries. • A rather stout, broad-based bill with completely-orange lower mandible, no dark tip. • Legs greyish at the front and pale pink at the rear and sides.

I decided to release the news and see what happened (I did wonder whether to sit on it as I’m not keen on big groups of people and like birding alone. If I was wrong, well I was wrong, and some people would have great delight in saying so! Whatever, I put out the following message on BINS (first for local news):

A bold call, but it seemed the right thing to do and we all know that everyone’s an expert sat at home on social media, but it’s a different ball game out in the field.

At just after 10:00 the bird reappeared, now much more active and feeding manically on the edge of a small Hazel Corylus avellana. It was now affording excellent views and at just after 10:15 Dave Fairhurst arrived and jammed in with almost instant superb views. A few other birders arrived shortly after, including Richard, and the bird was still showing well with about ten people enjoying good views. It became more mobile and started moving over a slightly wider area and feeding higher up. At about 11:00 it flew high up in a tall Scot’s Pine Pinus sylvestris and, well, didn’t come out, having shown on and off for about an hour between 10:00 and 11:00 and for 45 minutes with other people arriving all the time. There was no doubt that it showed best earlier on (when I first found it at 09:30 and again between 10:00 - 10:30) and had become increasingly more active, quick and mobile as it fed with fly-catching sallies, hovers and rapid darting movements. Perhaps it had just arrived when I found it, appearing more lethargic in its movements and very vocal, calling well over 20 times (it became pretty much silent after 10:00).

I had left when the bird reappeared at the other side of the meadow at 12:25 - getting way too busy for me by then! It apparently showed well, albeit briefly (for 3-4 minutes), and was seen by about 20 people, and some excellent photos were also taken. And that was it, with no further sign to dusk.

The bird had been present for near-on exactly three hours from when I first found it, and it went missing for half of that time. My decision to put the news out quickly (and it was quick) enabled 30 or so fortunate people to connect with what was a cracking little bird and a first for Suffolk - if I’d worried about getting it wrong and sat on the fence nobody else would have seen it! Many Suffolk birders missed the bird - but I guess that’s just birding! (Unfortunately, the WeBS count took precedence – Ed).

Distribution and status

Breeds south-eastern Siberia from Baikal region and northern Mongolia to Ussiriland, south to north-eastern China. Winters in southern China to Indonesia and central Thailand (British Birds October 2018:598)

Although Two-barred (Greenish) Warbler had been treated as the Siberian subspecies of Greenish Warbler, the adoption by BOURC of the IOC World Bird List from January 1st 2018 saw this bird elevated to full species status (British Birds October 2017:600).

The seven previous British records have been at Gugh, Scilly, October 1987; Wells, Norfolk, October 1996; Bryher, Scilly, September 2003; Filey, Yorkshire, October 2006; Papa Westray, Orkney, October 2016; Foula, Shetland, May 2017 and St. Aldhem’s Head, Dorset, October 2017.