A new species for Kent - Andy Appleton

It was 19th November 2011, and I had spent a few hours birding at Haysden in the morning. My wife had gone to London and I had dropped my son to a party and so had a few hours to myself. I popped back to Haysden but was thinking about that list of jobs.

Whether it was because it was a long list or I was feeling a bit guilty I don't know but I went home. I took a look at all I had to get sorted and decided the outside job of mending the gate would be as good a place as any to start.

At about 3pm I heard what appeared to resemble a Grey Wagtail - a bird not seen in the road since I had moved in the previous year. I looked up and quickly located the culprit not too high up and flying directly over me - I just about managed to note white and yellowish underparts before the bird banked north and from where I was straight flew into the sun - and that was it.

I carried on making a hash of the back gate, popping up to the garage for something (binoculars in hand obviously) when I heard what sounded like a rather metallic sounding Grey Wagtail - but it appeared to be coming from the small wood. Although I have seen Grey Wagtails in trees I don't generally think of them as woodland birds and there's no running water anywhere nearby so I decided this was worthy of further investigation.

Had I realised what it was I might have wandered up the road a little faster but I plodded up to where I thought it was calling from but it was a bit further away than I had anticipated. When I arrived at where the bird was it was still calling - I looked up and immediately clapped my eyes on the under-carriage of a warbler species. The only two warblers I have seen in Pennine Walk are Chiffchaff and Blackcap; it was clearly not a Blackcap and although it wasn’t too far off the size and shape of Chiffchaff, it was a bit slimmer but with a pure white belly and under-tail coverts and a rich yellow-green throat - surely not Wood Warbler - oh, and it’s November?

And no, not with those dark broken lines down both sides of the yellow breast and then, what on earth - it's got two wingbars? It can't be Yellow-browed Warbler, it's far too big and those wing-bars are white and broader and larger than I've seen on any other warbler! I quickly realised it must be an American warbler - Blackpoll seemed the most likely candidate but I knew I had to rule out two or three other exceptionally rare ones too. I also noted the silver-grey and white wing markings, the streaky olive upperparts and orange legs, as well as the diagnostic yellow feet - it had to be a BLACKPOLL WARBLER, a bird I hadn't really considered I might stumble across in my back yard.

Description:

Call - an unfamiliar metallic Grey Wagtail like call is the best I could describe and I was surprised how far up the road it was - a good 50 yards away – when I heard it calling from my garage. When lost it was quickly relocated by its unique (to me) call.

Bare parts - its legs were bright orange and the bird had yellow feet. Its bill was dark (grey or black) and it appeared loner and possibly slimmer than Chiffchaff.

Underparts - strikingly bright yellow-green throat and breast (brighter than most, but not all, pictures I have seen of first winter Blackpoll Warbler but that may have been the good light conditions) with faint streaking on both sides of the breast. The rest of the underparts were white including the pure white undertail coverts / vent.

Upperparts - the first thing that was obvious were the two wing-bars - these were white with not a hint of colour and were far larger than any other warbler I have ever seen (UK birding only); those of a Yellow-browed Warbler would be considered subtle compared to this bird - they were nowhere near as broad as that of a Chaffinch however. In addition there were two white tertial stripes running down the grey wings. The mantle was olive green. My notes say “not much of a supercilium”…

Size - it appeared to be roughly the size of a Chiffchaff (none available for comparison) but somehow looked longer - possibly a longer bill and tail…

Jizz - the Blackpoll Warbler flicked around in the trees like a warbler, not like Blue Tit, sometimes moving quite fast from branch to branch and flicking across to the other side of a tree as it continually fed.

I hope that we don't have to wait another twenty years before another American warbler turns up in West Kent and hopefully the next will be available for all. Interestingly the famous Golden-winged Warbler cruised around a housing estate too...

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