Tuesday 3 November 2009

Calls of western BRIGHT GREEN WARBLERS - further comments from sound specialist and expert Magnus Robb

Thanks for letting me know about these Bright Green Warblers with Greenish-like calls, about which I was completely unaware. Today I went through my 21 nitidus recordings from eastern Turkey, and as I thought, there were no trochiloides-like callers among them. However, when I went through Arnoud van den Berg's 17 recordings from the Caucasus, I did find one individual calling in the background with calls very similar to the Cornish bird. More similar in fact than the example on Hannu Jännes' CD. The bird in Arnoud's recording did not use this call exclusively, but used it frequently in among more typical calls. So, it now seems possible to me that the Cornish bird could be a Bright Green Warbler after all, although I'm a bit disturbed that it only seems to be using a call that is not 'classic' Bright Green.

I hope that with the help of this information, and taking all aspects into account, the identification can finally be resolved.

best regards,
Magnus Robb