Wednesday 4th May 2016

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Lesbos 2016..

Complacency is an odd thing, yesterday morning I casually remarked "oh Ring Ouzel" as a female of the species flew across in front of the car and landed nearby, a very brief look and I motored on, little did I realise that Ring Ouzel is almost considered a vagrant species to the island opps, I will have to fill out a rare bird description report ....

 After a few thunder storms through the evening the morning was reasonable but I didn't plan any ringing instead we went off in search of Caspian Terns never did see them though! I then decided that a late and short ringing session was called for so set the nets at the Christou River reed bed at 09:30hrs.

 By 09:40hrs there were three warblers in the net the first clearly a Reed Warbler, the second was somehow different ( it also called differently) and the third was an obvious Reed Warbler.

 My "not an obvious Reed Warbler" was duly processed and it seemed apparent that this bird needed reference to the ringing "guide" by Lars Svensson.

 The overall impression was Reed Warbler like but with a more Olive tone across the back, the rump was more buffish but still not rufous, was this a MARSH WARBLER? the wing was 69mm, the "notch" in the 2nd primary feather was 9mm, the tarsus was 23mm long and 2.5mm wide,the bill 12.4mm long and 1.8mm wide, the primaries were lightly but obviously tipped whitish.



I became more and more convinced that I was processing a Marsh Warbler and used a calculation from the guide book which helps determine the identification of the species V Reed Warbler which is  bill length 12.4mm - (bill width 1.8mm X tarsus width 2.5mm) = 7.9; also the ratio of the P2 notch to total wing length  9mm/69mm = 0.13 all point to Marsh Warbler!!!
Having reviewed all the data I'm happy with the identification

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