Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca

Nr Haddenham - January 2010

The bird shown below was photographed on 23rd January after being "noticed" by the owner of the property a few days earlier as an unusual bird.  He asked for some assistance from the Bucks Bird Club in identifying the bird and then kindly allowed one further visit in order for an attempt to be made to trap and ring the bird.  This was necessary in order to obtain the biometric data necessary to determine which race of Lesser Whitethroat this individual belonged to.  The Lesser Whitethroat complex is a particularly tricky species with regard to racial identification. The reader is recommended to refer to ‘Sylvia Warblers’ by Shirihai et al (Helm, 2001), to understand the difficulties involved in the exact identification of a particular individual.

As can be seen the bird was not too fussy in what it ate.  It did however chase off other birds, such as Blue Tit, in order to have the food to itself.

The photos  above and below show the contrast between the greyer head and the browner mantle. 

The bird was last seen on the 10th April.  It is thought that the origin of this bird is from Central Siberia or Central Asia.  A full report of the identification and the ringing of this bird, along with further photographs, will be published in the 2010 Annual Report.  The data and images from this form part of a submission to BBRC. 

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