All of the Marbury patch people have a soft-spot for our lesser spots. They're ace little birds and tough to see anywhere, so it's a pleasure to still have them just about clinging-on - especially as we thought they'd all gone a couple of years back.
With help from Marbury ranger Chris, along with Rob and Zac from work and Malc Curtin, we (I)managed to get up to the nest without too much bother and carefully guide the camera into the nest.
The nest 10-12m up in a willow
On the up with the nest camera on a pole - not for the feint hearted!
6 eggs! Seems late to be still incubating.
Male safely returning after the nest check, but spent longer than usual looking around - he obviously knew something had happened! Apparently males do most of the work at the nest and it's not uncommon for males to raise chicks without assistance from the female.
Local young 'un Luke Ozsanlav-Harris was en route for the Primsrose Hill nightjars on Tuesday 30th May when he picked up an unusal singing chiffchaff, and quickly put out a recording of the bird on the Cheshire Whatsapp group asking if anyone thought it sounded like an Iberian Chiffchaff - it most definitely did!
Next day the consensus was that the bird looked and sounded the part, with more recordings and also photos appearing over the course of the day. Some thought it may be calling like a collybita (common) chiffchaff, but hard to tell with multiple birds present. Most importantly the song was consistently good and seemed classic.
I went down after work and the bird showed very well at times, consistently singing (as per the sonogram below) and also showing the helpful strong supercilium which was bright yellow in front of the eye, browner legs, overall cleaner and greener upperparts, and it also appeared quite long-winged. Overall it looked something between a chiffchaff and a willow warbler, and it visibly shook each time it uttered the last part of the call. Seems as good a candidate as you will ever get to me! Only my second (after one in Cornwall in 2000), although mainly as I've never been tempted to travel too far for one. It seems this species is firmly on the radar now and is a scarce spring migrant rather than the cryptic super rare it was one though to be.
Photos below by Patrick Earith and sonogram by Andy Clifton.
Only the second Cheshire record so a great find - well done Luke!
