I popped down to see whether the Iberian Chiffchaff that Mark and Tony found at Soap Cove yesterday was still around. I bumped into this in the fading afternoon light in more or less the same place as it was first found yesterday, and managed to reel-off a few poor shots. Unfortunately, it wasn't singing (just calling like a Chiff), and I'm not entirely sure it was the same bird. It looks pretty good for Iberian, long primary projection, yellow vent, yellow for-supercillium etc, but I'd welcome any thoughts. There are some photos of the singing bird seen yesterday here (scroll down the page a bit).
Tricky with the light, but the bird yesterday seemed to have much more yellow tones on the sides of the breast. The pics and sonograms are now at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbwps.org.uk/cbwpsword/ibchiff/
Quite possibly a different bird, and probably no way of being certain, but I think the drab appearance is a bit of a light and photo artifact. I've added one more photo (the bottom one), which though a bit blurred shows the colour a bit better and suggest more yellow tones.
ReplyDeleteHi Ilya,
ReplyDeleteyour bird looks quite Chiffy to me (note the eye-ring for example). Besides plumage, one thing that might be a killer is the Chiffchaff call that you mention. I've never heard an Iberian doing that, and would be something new to me... The call should not (!) be a Chiffchaff one.
Cheers,
Rafael
You're almost certainly right Rafael. Probably just wishful thinking on my part. How goes it with you?
ReplyDelete