Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Wood Warbler in Edinburgh

Wood Warbler giving shiver-song in Duddingston yesterday

I have managed to photograph these three species of Phylloscopus (leaf-searching) warbler in Edinburgh over the last few days. Of course, the Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff are common in the wooded and scrubby parts of the city at this time of year. Yesterday's Wood Warbler was a little more unexpected. Singing birds are no problem to identify - as Gilbert White famously noted in describing the three species as Laughing Willow-wren, Chif-chaf and Shivering Wilow-wren.

Yesterday's Wood Warbler showing off its primary projection and yellow throat

A Willow Warbler at Duddingston yesterday had the pale washed out appearance of a more northerly bird. Long primary projection obscured...

Note short primary projection compared to tertial length on this Chiffchaff photographed at Blackford Pond

Pale eye ring, dusky cheek and (in life) tail dipping behaviour all good Chiffchaff features

Wood Warbler at Duddingston

I grew up in North Wales listening to the song of Wood Warblers through my bedroom window. After moving to Edinburgh I am pretty sure that I heard them singing in Blackford Glen and Craiglockhart Hill nearly 20 years ago and I have bumped into one or two on the East coast during migration periods. But when I came to compile my Lothian self-found list a couple of years ago I found that I could not recall the finding any particular individual Wood Warbler. So that species remained unchecked... until today.

The Wood Warbler, of course, has suffered a considerable decline in that time. It no longer sings in many woods that previously held them in Wales, and the situation is no different in Scotland. Today's bird, heard singing for an hour in Duddingston, will be passing through to some forest further North and West for it no longer breeds in Lothian.

A very beautiful species, with a real tropical look or that of a New World wood warbler, perhaps...