Donna Nook, Lincolnshire

Black brant 1
Lapland bunting 1
Pale bellied brent goose 1
Dark bellied brent goose 800
Peregrine 1
Merlin 1
Little egret 5

Year 2014: 283 (Lapland bunting)

Black brant.

Peregrine.

Blyth's Pipit and Smew, Pugney's, West Yorkshire

This morning I took the opportunity to call in at Pugney's Country Park at Wakefield, West Yorkshire, to look for the long staying Blyth's pipit. It's not that I've been putting off going, it's just that for most of its stay I was in Cyprus.

The bird is generally seen only in flight, but today I was lucky enough to see it perched in a willow tree for several minutes and had decent views of both its front and back. I managed to get four other birders onto it before it flew, and this was the first time they had seen it perched up in four visits.

It's a large pipit, quite similar looking to Richard's pipit with a long hind claw, which I could clearly see when it turned around to show off it's back. When it did fly, it gave a characteristic yellow wagtail like call "pshiu".

Also at Pugney's today, a cracking drake smew.

UK life: 403; Year: 282 (Blyth's pipit)

I've lost track of how many new species I've seen this year, but it will be something like 10 in the UK and another 8 in Cyprus. I'll have a tally up at New Year.

Through the scope it was actually a very good view of the bird, but I guess there's too much background for this to ever be a good photo!

American wigeon, Marshside

The American wigeon was again at Marshside today, and showed well at quite close range, but spent much of its time asleep. The light was also pretty poor, which didn't help from a photography point of view.

Year 2014: 281 (American wigeon)

This is probably about a third of the wigeon flock.

Rossall Point, Fleetwood

We called in at Rossall Point today for a look at the long staying shorelark which showed exceptionally well in the picnic area next to the café. Then we  had even better views of the snow bunting which was on the beach near the lookout. Supporting cast included three purple sandpipers, turnstones, ringed plover and three red-breasted mergansers.

Year 2014: 280 (Shorelark)

Overwintering "brevirostris" Chiffchaffs in Cyprus

Set against all of the fantastic species I saw on my holiday to Cyprus in December 2014, such as Finsch's wheatear, spur-winged plover, wallcreeper and greater sandplover, you might think that a chiffchaff would be amongst the least interesting. You'd be wrong. On 14th December I innocently recorded the call of one of the many individuals I came across, uploaded it to xeno-canto as race brevirostris and put a link to it on my blog, little realising that it was about to be analysed by some of the leading chiffchaff experts in the land, and potentially help change our understanding of the wintering ranges of chiffchaff. Based on these discussions, emails and personal research, I've put together a summary below of the situation as I see it regarding wintering chiffchaffs in Cyprus. Thanks to John Harris for his help.

Disclaimer: The following notes are entirely my opinion based on extremely limited non-scientific observations and do not necessarily represent the opinions of any other individual.

Virtually from the moment I arrived in Cyprus I couldn't fail to be aware of chiffchaffs. At first they were annoying little blighters because I couldn't work out what it was that was calling. They were a frequent, nagging soundtrack to all of the other fantastic birds I was seeing as if they were saying "forget that spur-winged plover, look at me"! The problem was, they weren't calling "huweet" like the British chiffchaff  Phylloscopus collybita collybita, they were calling "peep", in fact a call very similar to that of Siberian chiffchaff P. c. tristis, and there were lots of them about. I probably heard upwards of 10 a day, all over the place in a variety of habitats.

Following a little research on the Internet I came to the conclusion that in both plumage and call, these chiffchaffs most closely matched birds from the region of N and W Turkey, which have been designated as brevirostris by some authors but are merged with abietinus by others. However at this stage I still had no knowledge of the status of brevirostris on Cyprus.

Fortunately I recorded one of the calls and uploaded it to xeno-canto (you can hear it below). After an initial contact by John Harris, I got involved in email conversations with several people, including internationally recognised chiffchaff experts and senior BirdLife Cyprus representatives regarding the possible race of these birds.

It turned out that brevirostris has never been officially recorded on Cyprus. The long held assumption was that over wintering chiffchaffs on Cyprus fall into two races, P. c. collybita and P. c. abietinus. However, both of these races call "huweet", a call which I just didn't hear in the 13 days I was on the island. Everything went "peep".

My recording was analysed, and based on that analysis it emerged that the Cyprus birds do indeed have a call matching brevirostris. Far from being unknown on Cyprus my experience from admittedly limited observations indicate that brevirostris (whether as a separate race or just a form of abietinus) is by far the commonest chiffchaff in winter, certainly in the areas of western Cyprus which I visited.

So I suppose we can conclude by saying, if future research shows that  brevirostris warrants status as a separate taxon, then this is probably the race of chiffchaff which overwinters on Cyprus. If not, then the race occurring on Cyprus in the winter is indeed abietinus but it is the eastern form which calls "peep" and not "huweeet". Clearly anybody visiting Cyprus who hears a "peep" needs to consider this before claiming a tristis. Research into chiffchaff genetics is continuing.....

Harriers and chiffchaffs around Nata Village

This afternoon we had a final walk with the dog up into the hills around Nata village. Our walk took us through almond and olive groves, and the common birds were serin, linnet, Sardinian warbler and Stonechat.

We came across one small area of almonds which had a small flock of hawfinches, I still can't get over how relatively common they are here. Apparently it's been an exceptional winter for them, not only here but in Greece and probably Turkey as well.

Also "peeping" away in the bushes and scrub, chiffchaffs, which it now appears may well be brevirostris after all, but that's a story for another day. Its a developing stort as they say! They have a sibe chiffchaff like call, but apparently they've never been recorded on  Cyprus before, so what's going on?

Best sight of the day, and perhaps most surprising, four hen harriers flying over the hillside. Two males and two ringtails.

 Almond flower.

 Almonds

Male hen harrier.

 

Paphos sewage works

I managed to persuade Elaine that no holiday to Cyprus was complete without a visit to Paphos sewage works,  so we called in briefly. There was work going on and most birds had probably been scared away,  but there were still two spur-winged plovers and a cattle egret.

Highlight of the day was a red throated pipit which flew over calling.