259 : Upcher's Warbler

Upcher's Warbler - Hippolais Languida

I have to concentrate when birding to make sure I am not dismissing ticks through absolute ignorance. In this case ignorance of a Middle Eastern endemic that isn't a bird I readily used to see when I was birding in the Uk. It's probably quite common in Tamarisk trees across the region - but I wasn't looking for them. I have seen a number of birds that I have dismissed at Willow Warblers or Chiff Chaffs . So birding is about knowing what you see, but also knowing what you might see or ought to see. Your own library of experience is limiting as well expanding. There is an art in knowing your own birds intimately so that small differences when a hundred miles off your patch will resonate - and without a digital camera resonate quite quickly.

Looking back at this picture I realised it just wasn't a Chiff Chaff or a Willow Warbler. The bill was all wrong. On further bookwork I realised that there was a warbler I wasn't even switched onto that was common on passage and over wintering through the region - sitting in the same family as Booted, Icterine, Olivaceous, Olive-treeWarblers.The Southern European specialists. This offshoot of that family is an Eastern species - nesting in the Levant, Southern Turkey and right across Iran to Pakistan. We catch it on passage in the Spring on its way North.

Upchers Warbler, Hippolais Languida
April 2013
Safa Park, Dubai