søndag den 13. november 2016

Possible Siberian Accentor (Prunella montanella), 13.11.2016, Glatved Beach, Norddjurs, Denmark

Today was my second day searching for Siberian Accentor at Glatved Beach on Djursland. The habitat is indeed very similar to other places in Scandinavia from where sightings have been reported during this massive influx. After one hour of using playback of Siberian Accentor call, there was a bird responding with the right tone to its call. There had been several Dunnocks responding to the playback, but this one was different. I immediately stopped using playback and began recording instead (two of the best recordings are available here and further down).

The bird was calling from within dense bushes and was not visible. After several minutes of waiting without anything happening I used playback once again. This made a bird fly from the busk from where the putative Siberian Accentor call was heard; the flying bird was less than twenty meters away and looked like a Siberian Accentor with obvious black mask and broad yellow eyebrow and yellowish underside. However, even though it was seen in bright sunlight it was only seen very briefly and without binoculars. When it dropped down it was immediately gone as it went streight into another very dense bush.

I waited from almost half an hour without it showing itself again. Then I went closer and eventually ended up standing few meters from where the bird had dropped into the bush. I suddenly flushed a bird which went out on the other side of the bush and flew further away into an even much larger thicket. In this second sighting I only managed to see that it was a Donnock-type with a streaked reddish-brown back. Unfortunately it was not seen or heard again even though I waited until after sunset.

As the two sightings were only very brief, the only documentation that I have is the two recordings below. However, I am not sure that a positive ID can be made based on sound recordings alone. I will search for the bird tomorrow as I hope to be able to document the record with photos.

The best recording of the call are these two: XC342620 and XC342622.

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