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| Pale-legged Leaf Warbler - this bird photographed in Vietnam nine months ago (pic: Wikimedia Commons) |
WHEN The Birds of the Japanese Empire was published in 1890, it is doubtful if author Henry Seebohm ever expected that a wild, living example of the Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, one of his entries, would turn up on the Yorkshire Coast.
But so it was on Wednesday, when such a bird was spotted in shrubs adjacent to the car park at the RSPB Bempton Cliffs seabird reserve.
And there - at least, as of this afternoon - it has stayed ever since, occasionally calling and providing glimpses (most of them brief) to well over 2,000 birders who have travelled, sometimes from long distances, to view what for all will have been an exhilarating British 'tick'.
One such was Garry Bagnell, author of Twitching By Numbers, who yesterday drove all the way in a hire car from his home in Sussex to add the bird to his already extensive British bird species 'list'.
Mission accomplished, he tweeted: "Nice to see the warbler well - but only after a stressful five-hour wait.
"Probably 600 visitors today.
"It felt good to see so many smiling faces."
Another observer, Tom Hines, tweeted: "Early start to see this 'eastern mega' which should have been somewhere between China and Thailand
"It took a few hours, but then I got a decent view of this incredibly elusive bird ."
Back last Wednesday when the bird was first detected by Andy Hood, it was initially thought have been an Arctic Warbler, then provisionally re-identified as an an Eastern Crowned Warbler.
But, after much scrutiny of the bird in the field, analysis of the call and detailed perusal of textual descriptions and illustrations, it was confirmed as a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus tenellipes) - subject to ratification by the British Birds' Rarities Committee.
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| Henry Seebohm - ornithological expert of yesteryear |
In note form in his Japanese Empire catalogue, Henry Seebohm (1832-1895) described the bird thus: "This species has very delicate light pink-coloured legs and feet.
"Crown of the head, and a streak between the bill and eye produced over the ear-coverts, blackish olive-brown.
"Eye-streak yellowish. Upper parts buff-olive. Under parts pure white, except the flanks and under tail-coverts, which are buff, and the under wing-coverts of a primrose-yellow.
"Culmen of bill dark brown, the rest pale pinkish yellow."
Another 19th Century ornithologist familiar with the species was Robert Swinhoe (1836 - 1877) who worked in the British consulate in Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, and spent his spare time observing and recording the birds both of the island and neighbouring mainland China.
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| Robert Swinhoe - worked as consul in Formosa |
Referring to it as the Pale-legged Willow Warbler, he wrote in an 1860 edition of the journal, Ibis: "It has very pale legs and feet.
"It has two pale bars across the wing, and the second primary is equal to or slightly longer than the seventh
"Like most of its allies it is olive- brown above, but it differs from them in having the rump and upper tail-coverts russet-brown.
"There is an undoubted example of this species in the British Museum, which was formerly in the Tweeddale collection.
"It is sexed a female, and was procured by Mr. Henry Whitely at Hakdadi on May, 5 1865; and there is a second example in the Paris Museum which was procured in the same locality."
This month's headline-grabbing Yorkshire bird is the second record for Britain, following one found dead after hitting a window at the lighthouse on St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, on October 21, 2016, with a further record of either Pale-legged or Sakhalin Leaf Warbler from Portland, Dorset in 2012.
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| Roll up, roll up for the rare bird! The reception area at RSPB Bempton Cliffs |
* Top photo: Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, snapped in Cat Tien National Park, Vietnam, on December 15, 2023, by J.J. Harrison.
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