Greenish / Green Warbler

[Ilya Maclean]

There is an interesting warbler at Church Cove on the Lizard Peninsula, that many consider may be Britain's second record of Green Warbler Phylloscopus (trochiloides) nitidus. This morning I obtained a recording of the bird and although to my ear it sounds more like Greenish (trochiloides, I would value further opinions. The recording is downloadable from here:

http://piratebirding.blogspot.com/20...er-part-3.html

Also - a photo of the bird are available here:

http://www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/RealD...GalleryID=4131

[forktail]

Originally Posted by Ilya Maclean

There is an interesting warbler at Church Cove on the Lizard Peninsula, that many consider may be Britain's second record of Green Warbler Phylloscopus (trochiloides) nitidus. This morning I obtained a recording of the bird and although to my ear it sounds more like Greenish (trochiloides, I would value further opinions. The recording is downloadable from here:

http://piratebirding.blogspot.com/20...er-part-3.html

Also - a photo of the bird are available here:

http://www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/RealD...GalleryID=4131

Hey mate

The call you've recorded sounds to be a normal Greenish. Definitely not trisyllabic and with a fairly high upper end frequency (c 8Hz). And the sonagrams look good. Unfortunately, some field observers have seen, and some photos apparently show, features of a Bright-Green Warbler such as the supercilia falling short etc.

So...?

Tim

[RoyHargreaves]

So....
Either the plumage features are not 100% reliable, or the call isn't diagnostic, or the bird is a hybrid (unlikely as it seems that one has never actually been found).

From my unreliable memory I am sure I have seen photos of definite Greenish where the supercilium didn't reach the forehead etc, but don't ask me to remember where this was. Personally I didn't see how a bird that appears to be a 1st winter could be so lacking in obvious yellow.

[LeeEvans]

This was an incredibly interesting bird (I saw it yesterday along with 250 others) and I must admit that in the field, everything about it cries out Bright-Green Warbler (apart from the disyllabic call of course). It is particularly dingy on the underparts, with yellow in the supercilium and faint yellow washes to the ear-coverts, sides of face, neck-sides, fore-flanks and undertail-coverts. It has a strong flare in the supercilium behind the eye and a stripe that meets the bill just but does not appear to meet on the forehead. It has a thick-based, long bill orange-yellow on the lower mandible and very rich green (not greyish-olive) upperparts and a broad, yellowish-white greater covert bar and on one side, a few paler tips to the median coverts. The yellow wash does not extend on to the chin and throat but on to the sides of the throat.

The call as Ilya Maclean recorded is what would some describe as a typical disyllabic viridanus contact call and not the trisyllabic note one has come to expect from nitidus.

What I am interested in is any information on the eastern forms of Greenish Warbler in terms of appearance and call. Magnus Robb has confirmed that the call given by the Church Cove Phyllosc is identical to the frequent call uttered by viridanus populations from Scandinavia east to Kazakhstan and which he has obtained in his studies.

As Roy has stated above, it now seems that field characters can no longer be used to separate Bright Green from Greenish Warbler. It would have been very interesting to know what sonogram the 1983 Garrison first-winter would have produced, particularly as that bird was a typical very yellow-washed individual on the underparts.

What I also struggle to understand is that much of what has been written about the vocabulary of the two/three species suggest that it is very difficult for the human ear to detect any differences in sound and that the two are almost identical. However, I can easily detect differences between the di and tri-syllabic calls recreated on the variety of CD's on sale so cannot understand the difficulties (this suggest that studies have found much overlap in the calls on the breeding grounds). I fully agree that the sound the Church Cove bird was mking was typical Greenish in terms of a disyllabic note but if Bright-Green Warblers are able to utter this note too (as I understand birds on both wintering and breeding grounds do) how can a sonogram detect such differencies. I am very confused.

I have already produced evidence from western Turkey (published on my blog and referenced from Albrecht studies) that Bright-Green Warblers there can ONLY be separated from viridanus Greenish Warbler on song and not contact calls.

[LeeEvans]

I must return again to the original work by Albrecht on the identification and status of Bright-Green Warblers in the western Beech woodlands on the Black Sea in Turkey. As we know, this population contains over 80% of very drab, non-yellow singing males which are virtually impossible to separate from Greenish Warbler. Now, most concerning is that paper's claim on the vocalisation of these birds. The call is clearly described on page 69 as being a ''di-syllabic Tss-earp'' and not tri-syllabic. I would be interested to know if Magnus or any other sound recording engineer has taken samples of the calls made by birds from this population.

Yes, the songs of these Green Warblers are very different to Greenish and easily distinguishable but if the calls really are di-syllabic then how can we categorically say that an individual giving this call in West Cornwall is a Greenish Warbler. This is where I am at pains to understand the logic. Either Richard Porter, Mark Beaman and Albrecht got it totally wrong or this Cornish bird is still potentially a Bright-Green Warbler.

[Johnny X]

What's with the name Bright-Green Warbler?

[LeeEvans]

It has always been known as ''Bright-Green Leaf Warbler'' if you read all early studies of the species but was fore-shortened to ''Green Warbler'' by those wishing to save space in field guides. I cannot say which is correct but the UK400 Club/BBA recently adopted names agreed to by the AERC Committee in general and this was one of them

[Johnny X]

Ok, thanks Lee! Never heard it before.

I can't really understand the need for a qualifier unless it distinguishes from something...is there a Dull-Green Warbler? Maybe there should be ;-).

[MichaelF]

Surely either "Bright Green" or ''Bright-green" - capitals don't follow hyphens (only Sibley uses such abominations).

[forktail]

Hi folks

There must be someone out there who has recordings of western Turkish Green Warblers?

BWP quotes Turkish birds as having a disyllabic, almost trisyllabic call, variously transcribed as:
tchew-wee, chee-wee, chi-wee, chi-ri, or with a teminal consonant such as twee-chew, tss-eurp, tss-reep etc. Also states that this call was generally found indistinguishable in Turkey from a Greenish, although nitidus is often slightly longer, more liquid and more complex, sounding almost trisyllabic.

To me, most of those transcriptions could sound like a Greenish warbler.

mmm...

F.