Landshipping and Chiffchaffs

Plenty of birds around Landshipping late this morning. Teal (100+), Redshank (30+), Snipe (25) and a Greenshank. Over towards Sprinkle Pill large numbers of Lapwing and Dunlin on the expose mud and Golden Plover flocks visible over the fields. 40+ Greylag geese flew down river, followed by a flock of about 50 Canada Geese. The highlight though was a Great Northern Diver. At first it was flying down river but it then landed just at the mouth of Sprinkle Pill. It stayed around for a while but I later lost it so I assume it carried on down stream.

Later at Milton, there was plenty of woodland birds along Paddock lane including at least 4 Chiffchaffs. 2 were clearly the nominate collybita and 1 look very good for *Siberian tristis* and another pale bird that look a little too olive for Siberian, abietinus?
I watched them for about an hour and a half and managed some good views. I played the call and song of Siberian Chiffchaff in the hope to get the bird to call back. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to call but it did become very interested when the song was played. It would stop feeding and attempt to find the source of the song, this also included a wing quivering display. 

All the features of the bird seemed to point to Siberian Chiffchaff. The supercillium was buff/white, prominate and had no sign of any yellow tones. The upperparts were a buff- brown/grey and the underparts were whitish. Not obvious from photos but the sides of the breast appeared buffish almost forming a faint band. the tertials, secondaries and tail were thinly fringed with olive green and the rump was slightly olive too. The pale edges to the greater coverts formed a paler diffuse wing bar, that was obvious in good light and if the bird was side on. The ear coverts were brownish and slightly contrasted with the paler upperparts. The bare parts were black, contrasting with the pale body. The feet being slightly paler in bright light. The bill appeared slightly shorter than that of collybita and had a small pale base. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon getting to grips with this taxa!

Siberian tristis Chiffchaff

abietinus(?) Chiffchaff

Common collybita Chiffchaff