Central Asian Lesser Whitethroat at Donna Nook in 2011
On the morning of November 9th 2011 at Donna Nook Lincolnshire there had clearly been a good arrival of thrushes, mainly Blackbirds, but also up to 30 Robins and a few other birds; that late in the autumn thoughts turn to really rare birds from the far east and the lingering hope of an Asian Desert Warbler meant that when we came across a small pale sandy coloured warbler with obvious white outer tail feathers in the marram there was a brief moment of could it be but the bird quickly resolved into an eastern, recently deemed / named Central Asian, Lesser Whitethroat (halimodendri). The bird landed in a small hawthorn but then quickly went down into the marram where it was catching caterpillars; better views confirmed it was tiny and very pale coloured with almost no contrast between the upper and underparts and the faintest of grey tinges to the forecrown - it was a striking little bird but its choice of habitat meant that it could be easily overlooked and we lost it for an hour or so but it could generally be found in the grass or low in the scattered elders and hawthorns where it seemed to go when disturbed. Along with Neil Drinkall we watched it for a few hours on and off and hearda. very distinctive and most un Lesser Whitethroat like call. I returned on 11th and managed to get a very poor sound recording on my phone complete with far too much wind noise which is posted below along with sonograms of the calls. I also took a series of images of the bird but it was elusive and many were not sharp and critically for the ensuing 13 years I did not manage to get the white balance correct in the images that had a heavy magenta cast caused by the mis match of Canon files and Adobe software. Having now got the white balance sorted I have re-processed the images and they are presented below. BBRC do not accept that Central Asian Lesser Whitethroats can be identified without DNA evidence so this bird will forever remain speculative in their opinion. Things have changed rapidly in the field of bird identification in the last 50 years but to my mind the recent move to DNA based identifications rather than good old solid field observations is a detrimental step. Whatecer this was a really interesting bird and still stirs my imagination.
Description:
It was strikingly pale and sandy on the upperparts and with a contrasting whitish throat and upper breast then a peachy – buff lower breast, belly and flanks. The bill was short and the head pattern weakly marked compared to nominate Lesser Whitethroat with a white crescent below the eye being more obvious than the weak crescent above; most of the features of the bird are shown in the attached photos with a poor out of focus flight shot that shows the extent of white in the outer tail feathers. The most distinctive feature of the bird apart from its looks was its call a mid-toned dry series of rattles described as trrrrrrrrrt totally dissimilar to the call of nominate birds. (I have attached a poor-quality recording of the call recorded on the 11th.)
It looks very similar to the bird in Aberdeen British Birds 98 (11) Eastern Lesser Whitethroat in Aberdeen and the same bird in Birding World 17 (12) 502 – 504 Apparent Desert Lesser Whitethroat in Aberdeen. But as all authorities seem to state making sub-specific identification between minula and halimodendri in a vagrant context is not practicable; the plumage and calls however, make these birds a very different bird to our summer breeding Lesser Whitethroats.
Sonogram of the bird’s call
The text from the excellent Frontiers series by Martin Garner and Ray Scally just about fits this bird to a tee and the images in the new ID Handbook of European Birds are also a good match.
It rarely perched up in the low hawthorns and this was an unusually clear view - note how pale and sandy the upperparts were right up to the central crown with the peachy underparts only a little paler than the upperparts but the white throat standing out - the very short primary projection c30% of the tertial length is obvious here
Feeding down near the ground in marram and low sea buckthorn
the pale upperparts and wings with contrasting dark alula and again the very short primary projection with the short p2 possibly visible here
the habit of feeding on the ground in low vegetation meant it was often hard to locate
tail cocking habit is mentioned in the Frontiers book and is also a regular habit of Asian Desert Warbler - note here the brownish wash extending to the central crown
feeding in marram
All white T6 visible on right side
I think that look says - don’t you know how far I have come to be labelled as non-proven!