Barred Warbler

I'd gone to WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, really just to discuss volunteering but since I was there...I thought I'd do a bit of birding as well!

There was nothing showing on the sightings page so I didn't think I'd see much. I made my way up to the estuary tower, where I met a couple of other birders who were scanning for the American Golden Plover which had been seen the day before. 

We didn't manage to see the plover, but a Wheatear, Marsh Harrier, 20+ Ruff and a steady trickle of Redwings moving through kept us interested. 

I was thinking about moving on to the next hide when me and Mike King (his blog can be found here: https://theglosterbirder.co.uk/) saw a grey warbler, feeding in the scrub below us. Just before it disappeared back into the Blackthorn, I managed to grab a few quick record shots; with the views we had, we couldn't tell if our bird was Barred or a Garden Warbler. 

Only Mike and I saw it initially, so my photos were very useful; they were put on WhatsApp but the birds identity was still in question. 

We waited 45 minutes before the bird came out again, lingering out in the open for much longer before flying over to the vegetation in front of the Knott hide. The views this time were much better and it revealed a few key identification features including a proportionately long tail, barred undertail coverts (feathers under the tail), a thick, heavy bill, pale fringes to the wing feathers and very faint barring to the flanks - these features combined with its large size all showed that it was a Barred Warbler!

Barred Warblers are a very scarce migrant from Eastern Europe which are blown onto British shores on their way down to East Africa, a process known as drift migration. They are usually only seen on the east coast, so to see one inland, on the western side of the country, is very rare - it is the 1st ever recorded at Slimbridge WWT, and only the 3rd record for Gloucestershire. 

The conditions for receiving drift migrants this Autumn haven't been very good as easterly winds with some drizzle and cloud cover are best.

Some of the key features of Barred Warbler are shown in these next 2 images...

In this first picture, you can clearly see the large, heavy bill and long tail, as well as barring on the undertail coverts (feathers covering the base of the tail feathers)

Here you can just make out the faint barring on the flanks. On breeding plumaged males, it stands out an awful lot more, to the point where almost all of the underparts of the bird are barred in some way.

I feel very lucky to have co-found this amazing bird with Mike and it is by far one of my best finds - well, until the next one at least!