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The Birds Of South Gloucestershire          Yellow-browed Warbler - phylloscopus inornatus

 

Yellow-browed Warbler is a leaf warbler which breeds in Asia east from the Urals to China, it is strongly migratory and winters in southeast Asia. It is an abundant bird of lowland and mountain woodlands. There were formerly considered to be three forms, but the forms 'humei' and 'mandellii' now comprise the closely related Hume's Leaf Warbler. This tiny warbler is prone to vagrancy as far as western Europe in late September and October, despite a 3000 km distance from its breeding grounds. It occurs in late autumn in Great Britain regularly enough that it is nowadays not classified as rare.

 

There have been four Yellow-browed Warblers reported from S. Gloucestershire;

 

2008: (2)

One was seen on February 27th, remarkably, also in the grounds of the Abbeywood complex at Filton. It was first noticed at 10:30 and was seen again around lunch time; One possibly this species was present on the motorway embankment behind Ormond Close at Bradley Stoke at 15:45 on December 14th at ST: 626 814.

 

2007: (1)

On February 4th a 1st winter was found along the cycle track one hundred and fifty metres north of Abbey Wood Station on the MOD site in Filton.

 

2001: (1)

On October 12th a juvenile/ 1st winter was found at Old Passage. This occurrence constitutes the first report of this species in S. Gloucestershire.

 

Found by: Dick Reader.

 

 

 

Yellow-browed Warbler at Old Passage. October 2001. Paul Bowerman.

 

FIELD DESCRIPTION

 

Stopping at midday for a “quick look” around the trees and bushes at Old Passage, near the, now derelict, Aust Ferry Terminal I was immediately “confronted” by a small phylloscopus warbler, showing a bold pale yellow supercilium, black line through the eye, and two pale yellow wing bars. Realising I was looking at Severnside’s first Yellow-browed Warbler, and that the “locals” would like to see it, I phoned Paul Bowerman with the news and asked him to relay it  to others.

 

The bird then flew up into the canopy of the larger trees, and was chased off, over the road, by a Chiffchaff. The Water Board then arrived with a large lorry, compressor, and pneumatic tools and proceeded to fill in a large hole in the road, the noise was unbelievable. After two hours they eventually left, and thirty minutes later the bird was relocated calling from the hawthorns, and a small sycamore, where I had first seen it earlier.

 

DESCRIPTION

 

As can been seen in left hand photo the upperparts are olive-greenish, and the under parts are whitish. The two pale yellow “wing bars” can also be seen, more conspicuous on the greater coverts. Not so obvious in the right hand photo are the tertials which were dark almost black with thin white fringes, and white tips. The bold pale yellow supercilium and black line through the eye can be seen in the right hand photo. Also, there is no central crown stripe on the head, as shown by Pallas’s Warbler.

 

Bill: Dark with paler fleshy base.

 

Legs: Brownish.

 

Size: Slightly smaller than the harassing Chiffchaff.

 

Call: A quite loud, Coal Tit-like “tswee-eee” most often with an upward inflection and repeated several times in a rapid sequence (making relocation easy).

 

Jizz: A typical small, very active phylloscopus.

 

There was nothing to suggest the bird was other than the nominate race inornatus. Humei would show a whiter supercilium, and wing bars, greyer upperparts, and a call more of a disyllabic tsee-yeep or pseee-up. Thanks are due to Paul Bowerman for photographing this very active bird.

 

Dick Reader - October 2001.

 

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