Back to Chiffchaffs

I'm not going to say very much about this bird, other than to say it's a Siberian Chiffchaff, and that I got a great deal of satisfaction digiscoping this one!

Well, its definitely a Chiffchaff

Here we go again.  What appears to be the same 'Siberian' Chiffchaff has shown up at Marston Sewage Works today.  I wasn't quite expecting to bump in to one but like last year, this bird appeared just as I tried playing the the call of tristis.  However it really didn't seem very interested in the recording - perhaps coincidence?

So, it looks like the same interesting individual as last year and also sounds like the same too.  Below is a snippet of calls I managed to get with my Remembird.  It sure does sound the same.  That is to say, not right for tristis, but very much more collybita in tone - listen to the clip and have a look at the sonogram below.  I really think this bird needs ringing and a feather being sent off.  Maybe it's one of those mythical abietinus...

Here are links to previous posts about this bird:
http://steveblain.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/95-tristis.html
http://steveblain.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/that-chiffchaff-again.html
http://steveblain.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/iffy-chiffy.html

95% tristis

Thanks to Neil Wright, I finally got to hear the remaining Siberian Chiffchaff sing yesterday morning. And it sounds more or less like it should for a tristis. Take a listen:

But there is no doubt this wasn't a 'classic' bird, at least in my eyes. When it first arrived it looked good (see above) but you would have walked straight past it if you were only 'listening' for Siberian Chiffchaffs. Take a listen here:

The calls represented here were typical of what it was giving constantly.  Interstingly since first picking it up in early December I have hardly heard it call in all the visits I have made over to look at it.  However it called several times yesterday and I managed to get two snatches on my Remembird:

None of these calls are the true tristis 'peep'.  They are virtually all a clear rising 'wheep' just like collybita. The two calls recorded yesterday are actually much closer to a true tristis call but still aren't really flat, as you can see in the sonogram above.  So where does that leave us?

Well, it looks like a tristis, and it sings like a tristis, but doesn't really call like a tristis.  Is it a tristis?  I think so.  This bird is a prime candidate for having some DNA work done so we'd know once and for all, that tristis can call just like collybita.

And another weird chiffy

Another interesting Chiffchaff.  This one was at Broom GP.  I initially saw two birds in the willows - one dingy grey collybita type which was calling constantly, and then this bird.  I hadn't noticed it until I tried playing tristis song at the collybita bird (just to see if it would react more than anything else), and this bird popped out from the bottom of some willows and started flapping its wings and bouncing around the branches above me.  Unfortunately this bird remained silent throughout.

Plumage wise this is an odd bird.  From a distance it looks buffy and brown, with the only real green around the wings and tail.  Up close the green is much more evident, especially around the mantle, flanks and in the supercillium.  The two chiffchaffs in this clump also act differently - the collybita is often much higher up in the top third of the willows, but this bird is usually at the very bottom - usually in the bottom two feet, just above the water.

To say that chiffchaffs do my head in is an understatement!  As others have said, its redpolls all over again...

Another Sibe Chiff

At the same time I found the 'other' Siberian Chiffchaff at Marston Sewage Works I also came across this bird.  It is distinctly different - its more beige and buff in colouration, without the greyness of the other bird.  The wings and tail, although tinged green, aren't nearly as bright as the other bird, and it also has a light wingbar.  This bird is also much more confiding and spends more time in low vegetation.  It has also been silent on every visit - or at least I haven't seen it call, or been close enough when it has.

On close inspection there is some yellow in its plumage - however this is only visible in the images above.  None of this yellow was visible in the field.

More shots of this bird by Neil Wright can be found on the BedsBirds blog here.

So, should both birds be labelled 'tristis'?  One bird looks good but hasn't called, and the other bird looks good (but more contrasting) and has a slightly strange call. Hmmmm.

That Chiffchaff again

I bumped in to that Sibe Chiff again today - it really is a looker.  Still doesn't sound quite right though...

There are more shots of this bird by Mike Lawrence on the BedsBirds blog here.

Iffy Chiffy

Looks ok for tristis, doesn't it.  Its a nice shade of grey-brown, with green restricted to the wings and tail.  That's all well and good, but now listen to it...



It's not the 'classic' tristis peep.  It sounds a lot more like a collybita.  I wonder, what do grey abietinus sound like?  Do they exist?  And if they do exist, would they look and sound like this?

There is currently an interesting discussion on the Surfbirds forum of a similar bird from Sweden.  The video shows a grey tristis type chiffchaff calling like a collybita.  The thread can be found here.

Tristis in Cyprus?

The Chiffchaffs in Cyprus had me a little foxed.  When we arrived there were Chiffchaffs everywhere, in fact, the first bird I heard (and indeed woke me up the first morning) was a singing Chiffchaff.  After a few days the mega numbers had petered out and while there were still plenty around, Chiffchaff numbers had dropped significantly.  However this enabled me to start synthesizing what I was hearing.

Many were doing the 'seoo' call, with this call probably being the commonest type I heard.  Occasionally I thought I heard the 'peep' of a tristis amongst the groups of chiffs, but suspected my ears were playing tricks on me and it was a variant on the 'seoo'.

It wasn't until my second week, when the birding had slowed a little when I properly listened to a couple of birds calling in pine trees by Aspro dam.  There were few other birds to distract me this time and I concentrated a little harder.  These birds sounded like tristis!  Or at least they sounded very like the last tristis I heard, back in Bedfordshire the winter before last.

They were actually very difficult view as pines they were in were rather thick, but the views I got of both birds seemed to confirm tristis - creamy brown ground colour, yellow restricted to wings and tail, a good supercillium, pretty dark bare parts - they looked the part.  Unfortunately as I only had my digiscoping kit with me getting any images was next to impossible.

I did however record their calls on my iphone.  The next step is to compare the sonograms to confirmed tristis and see how they stack up.  And get in touch with the Cyprus recorder to see what the score is with tristis on Cyprus.

So, I guess, more of this later...