Øygarden 27 October 2009 - Siberian Chiff-chaff

Plenty to eat in the garden today for this tristis-type Chiff-chaff

Note the clean underparts with no yellow tones and the faint wing-bar.

Here showing yellow "armpits" - the only place a tristis is meant to show any yellow.

Siberian (tristis) Chiff-chaff gransanger

This picture almost made us late for school...

Early morning record shot with ridiculous ISO settings...

Not a common bird at this time of year - Common Redshank rødstilk at Sæle

The afternoon was so warm that this Red Admiral butterfly put on a show

The first noise I heard outside this morning as I ventured out with my morning coffee had me dashing back inside for camera and binoculars immediately. Thinking that there was some eastern form Bullfinch dompap in the garden the coffee was soon cold. However, the bird was in fact what seemed to be a tristis (Siberian) Chiff-chaff gransanger. No yellow tones on the underparts, a wing bar and a piping call note nothing like normal Chiff-chaff at all all pointed in the right direction.

Normally I wouldn't have claimed such a bird based on the plumage alone but the piping call was really something else. Record shots were taken before doing the usual dropping off at school etc but the bird had vanished on my return.

Other passing the garden during the photo shoot included a Hedge Accentor jernspurv, a Yellowhammer gulspurv and a Great-spotted Woodpecker flaggspett.

Having completed a round of work etc I checked Sæle where there was another "piping" Chiff-chaff gransanger that I didn't see well, a few Blackcaps munk and most of the usual suspects. Best bird here was a rather unseasonal Redshank rødstilk - possibly an Icelandic bird?

Back home in the garden the Chiff-chaff put on another performance, this time enabling pictures of somewhat better quality to be taken.