Hail to Thee Blyth Spirit

Regular readers will have noticed a distinct lack of posts over the last few months here. The reasons for this are several: I'm now working full time, albeit from home at present, so don't have the opportunity so easily to take the day off to go and twitch something. Weekends are taken up with family activities and in these present difficult times, I'm trying to keep as strictly "family time". Also, at the start of the lockdown due to Government restrictions twitching wasn't even an allowed option and it was only later on (which happily coincided with the Hoopoe and the Red-footed Falcon in Oxon) that it even became a possibility. Not that there's been a great deal that I would have wanted to twitch. I've watched with interest as we were invaded by Rose-coloured Starlings and Marsh Warblers but not enough to want to do anything about it. However, the sudden jump in Blyth's Reed Warblers records has been something that has picqued my interest. This species has been on my wanted list for a few years now: mysterious skulking birds which can only be identified by experts unless they are singing males and with only one or two records per year they would be a highly sought after life tick. That's all changed this year with dozens of records in the last couple of months mostly along the east coast. Most of them have still been rather skulking and most have been discovered through their song so there's probably an equal number of undiscovered females out there. Whilst most have done the usual "arrive exhausted, spend a day or two recouperating and then leave" routine, one bird up in Lincolnshire decided that he liked it so much that he set up territory. For the past week or so (at the time of writing) he's been belting out his song at point blank range in a desperate attempt to attract a mate. Given the numbers arriving in this country it's not altogether impossible that he might find one though the odds are of course heavily stacked against him. Still, a nailed down showy Blyth's was too good an opportunity to miss. I still hadn't really decided to go for it but just happened to mention to my daughter that if she wanted to head up to Edinburgh anytime soon to retrieve her stuff (which is stranded in her student room there at present) then that would be good. She replied that she wasn't allowed to do this just yet but a friend of hers in Doncaster has something that she needed. Now Doncaster happened to be rather near to my target bird so I didn't take much persuading to run this errand for her. So on Monday morning I waited until there was news of the bird's continued presence (which came soon enough - the bird was an early riser!). Then it was a matter of seeing if I could the day off at short notice from work. This was duly agreed upon and so shortly after 9 a.m. I was on the road.

My sat nav app was suggesting that rather than slogging up the M1, then cutting across the M180 instead to take the scenic route via the A46 and A15 past Lincoln. As this wasn't a route that I was that familiar with I thought that I'd give it a try. This turned out to be a nice, reasonably quiet way of getting there and with Radio 4 for company the miles slipped away. I'd left Oxford in bright sunshine but after a while I hit a wall of dull murk. To be honest I was quite pleased about this. The one concern I had was that I'd read reports of the bird stopping singing late morning and becoming much more skulking. My guess was that this might happen sooner the hotter it was so a bit of murk might help in this respect. Eventually I reached the turn off from the A15 and started to see signs for Far Ings Nature Reserve. The iconic Humber bridge hove into view - I was nearly there at last!

The Humber bridge

I parked up at the Ness End Farm, the Lincs WT centre, got tooled up and hurried up the road. As I went I met several other birders coming the other way. I'd forgotten how friendly people are up north - they all wanted to stop and chat. I obliged as much as was polite given that I'd yet to see the  bird though they all said that it was singing continuously. Eventually I reached the twitch area which basically consisted of a couple of Hawthorn bushes next to a ditch by the side of a single track road.

Staking out the two Hawthorn bushes

I could hear the bird singing away immediately so my concern about it stopping and skulking had proved unfounded. My main concern was the number of people there. This was my first proper out of county twitch since the pandemic and with a dozen birders crammed in a small space any kind of social distancing was going to be difficult. To start with I hung back and used my scope. After a few mnutes of singing hidden away my target bird flew up into a bare branch at the back of the larger Hawthorn where it continued to sing away and I was able to get my first view.

 

This seemed to be what a number of the present birders (mostly camera toting) seemed to want and after it soon ducked down into the ditch again a good half dozen of them left leaving a much more manageable number behind and I felt safe enough to move closer and to start to wield my superzoom camera. The bird was quiet for no more than a few minutes at a time though would often sing for prolonged periods out of view, sometimes down in the ditch. I'd listened to a number of recordings so knew what to expect though I must admit that I was truly entranced by it's lovely song. It would methodically and deliberately repeat each phrase a number of times and throw in lots of mimicry. It was fun to play "spot the impersonation" and this bird had quite a repertoire.

Occasionally it would fly up onto a bare Hawthorn bush where it was much more easily viewable and then everyone would pap away like crazy. The rest of the time it would skulk around out of  sight though with a bit of observering you could often see the reeds moving as it worked its way through the ditch and thus work out what angle to view from. So a number of times I'd manage to find an angle to view it from and would start taking some shots. The first time I did this some photo birder came and stood literally right next to me in his desperation to get a shot. I really couldn't understand  it - it wasn't like the bird  had been skulking away for hours. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was standing too close to me and that there was plenty of time to see the bird and he backed off apologetically. I just can't understand this craziness that besets photographers in situations like this. They seem so desperate for that money shot that all reason and etiquette goes out the window when they see their target.

I passed about an hour and a half in this way, enjoying listening to the bird and following it as it alternated between singing on an exposed branch and then skulking around in the ditch. By the end I felt that I'd well and truly seen a Blyth's Reed Warble and could head back for home content. I wandered back to the car in a peaceful frame of mind, stopping only to admire a Pyramidal Orchid standing all alone in an otherwise closely cropped lawn.

On the way back to the car I spotted this single Pyramidal Orchid that someone had carefully mown all around to leave it standing on its own

Back at the car I did contemplate going for the Rose-colourd Starling about an hour further northwards at Collingham in Yorkshire but there had been no news on it since first thing this morning. Whilst it was probably still there, after some deliberation in the end I decided to head back for home instead. I had to stop off briefly to pick up something for my daughter (thus making it an official errand rather than just some random twitch) but apart from that my journey back home was uneventful and I arrived back at Casa Gnome late afternoon for my customary celebratory cup of tea and a catch-up with my VLW.

Addendum: ID Breakdown

My interest in the whole identification headache for the Reed, Marsh, Blyth's complex was picqued recently by a great blog post by Gavin Haig on Not Quite Scilly - see here. In it he went into all sorts of detail regarding the recent Beer Head Blyth's, which was most educational as up until now all that sort of stuff about emarginations of P4 had completely gone over my head. I felt pretty confident that I could successfully identify a singing male from these three species without any difficulty but I was suprised at how tricky the Beer Head bird's song was (see here) - I would certainly have struggled. But what would happen if I came across a non-singing bird, would I be able to do it? Maybe it was time I finally got to grips with the differences. Accordingly and largely for my own benefit (though in passing I hope that this is also useful to others) here's the Gnome Guide to Reed, Marsh and Blyth's.

Feature	Reed	Marsh	Blyth's
Head	super stops at eye, eye ring stronger than super, dark lower bill	super stops at eye, eyering same as super, yellow lower bill	super extends beyond eye, eyering same as super, yellow lower bill
Flanks	rufous tinge	yellow tinge all over underside	dark grey tinge
Rump	warmer brown rump than mantle and tail	rump concolourous with mantle and tail	rump concolourous with mantle and tail
Primary Projection	70-100% 7-8 tips beyond tertials	100%, 7-8 tips beyond tertials, pale tips	55-70%, 6-7 tips beyond tertials
Emargination	P3, little P4	P3, little P4	P3, P4, little P5
Tertials	tertials shorter than secondaries	tertials extend beyond secondary tips	tertials shorter than secondaries

So, let's look at some photos  to illustrate all of the above.

Blyth's (courtesy of Ewan Urquhart)
supercilium extends beyond eye,
no contrast between eye ring and super,
yellowish lower bill

Reed Warbler (courtesy of Nick Truby)
supercilum largely stops at eye
eye ring stands out compared to super
dark lower bill

Marsh warbler (courtesy of Roger Wyatt)
super stops at eye
no eye ring contrast with super
yellow lower bill

Reed Warbler, courtesy of Roger Wyatt
rump a warmer brown than mantle & tail
rufous tinge to flanks

Marsh Warbler courtesy of Roger Wyatt
hint of yellow to underside

Blyth's courtesy of Ewan Urquhart
Short primary projection ~ 50%
strong emargination P3, P4, hint on P5
Short tertials don't reach secondaries

Reed Warbler courtesy of Roger Wyatt
Primary projection ~ 75%
strong emargination P3, hint on P4

I've certainly learnt a lot from putting all this together and now feel that with a half decent photo of a  bird in the field I'd be able to nail the ID. I just have to go and find something now!