Yellow-browed Warbler at Chasewater 14th – 21st (22nd) February 2004

The bird was first heard calling by Paul Jeynes, as he was watching the gull roost, on 14th February 2004. He soon located the bird and had views good enough to establish its identity as a Yellow-browed or even Hume’s Warbler.
He ran to alert Bernard Smith and myself who were chatting on the south shore and we raced to the spot and eventually had fleeting views of a small phyllosc with whitish underparts and a wing bar. It called once as it flew across the gap between bushes where Paul had been standing. The call was a piping slightly disyllabic dzee-ip. Over the following days it was heard to call on a few occasions and the similarity to the call of Coal Tit was striking; most frequently a more monosyllabic dzeeep that was once rapidly repeated three times.
It was first seen on the 15th at 09:00 am and gave brief views to many birders as it toured around the plantation, sometimes in the canopy and at other brief times very low down as it hunted for insects. It could be very elusive but certainly remained until the 21st and was also claimed, briefly, on the 22nd although some expressed doubts about this claim.
The following pictures are my video captures but Phill Ward and one or two other birders should have reasonable stills of it.

© Copyright 2004 Graham Evans and Chasewater Wildlife Group