Common Whitethroat - Sylvia Communis
This is a bird that you normally hear before you see. The rasping, chiding calls are a typical sound of hedgerow and scrub right across Europe. This is a typical view on a patch of gorse next to the sea.
This is not a bird you can dismiss as a "Little Brown Job" and I invite you to click twice and blow it up to appreciate the colours in the plumage. That warm rusty tone in the wing will tell you its not a Lesser Whitethroat, its namesake and confusion species.
The Common Whitethroat migrates right across the Sahara before crossing into Europe through Spain each year. This makes it very vulnerable to weather events in Africa like droughts and the population in Europe can suffer real difficulties at times.
I think is a bird that most people in Europe should be able to see on a walk down a country lane. Its a doorway past those "first birds" to a realisation of just what is out there. I had a period when I did not bird (to cool for school) and then when I came back to it I decided to "start again" ignoring any UK ticks and going to out to find everything again for myself. I can remember the elation when I got first good view of a Whitethroat propped in a Bush in Erith Marshes in South London. When you think to yourself that its flown all the way from the Sahel it cannot help but fascinate.
This bird was snapped on a sea cliff in the North West of the UK I think in early 2008. Very satisfying. Nothing Common about them to me.
A further bird here caught a few years later with the new camera in Barn Elms WWT and added to the site
Common Whitethroat - Sylvia communis
June 2008 - North West Britain - Sea Cliff
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