Which is rarer: Little Bunting or Cetti’s Warbler?

Little Bunting (Steve Stansfield)

Bardsey Bird Observatory staff are kept busy in October with daily census and ringing effort. Large numbers of birds migrating over the island last week included over 1000 Chaffinches counted on one day. A recent highlight was Little Bunting, a visitor from northeast Europe that should have been well on its way to winter in southern China. Of the 39 accepted Welsh records, 16 were from Bardsey.

But rarity is a matter of perspective. Bardsey’s 17th Little Bunting makes it far more common than the island’s fourth Cetti’s Warbler that also landed last week. The explosive call of Cetti’s Warbler is familiar to birders visiting wetlands on the coastal fringes of North Wales, although it is a hard bird to see. The chestnut-coloured bush-warbler is unique in Europe, the other three members of the family all live in south or east Asia. Although the first Welsh record was also on Bardsey, in October 1973, since Cetti’s Warblers don’t migrate, it took more than 25 years for the breeding population to spread from Kent to Anglesey, one wetland at a time. It’s a bird taking advantage of habitat restoration and the warming climate; on holiday in Brittany, I noticed they are now common away from water. Will that be the case here in a few decades?

Other highlights on Ynys Enlli/Bardsey were Siberian Chiffchaff, Lapland Bunting and several Yellow-browed Warblers, with others across the water near Uwchmynydd and at Holyhead’s Breakwater Country Park. Bird of the week on Anglesey was a showy White-rumped Sandpiper at Malltraeth Cob, while a Hoopoe was seen at Llanfachraeth and a late Arctic Tern at Porth Cwyfan.

On the mainland, a Dartford Warbler reported at Sealand on Monday is the first Flintshire record for decades; a Glossy Ibis fed in fields near Aber Ogwen and a possible Central Asian Lesser Whitethroat foraged in bushes at Porth Meudwy.

Finally, I was honoured to be awarded the British Trust for Ornithology’s Dilys Breese Medal at a ceremony in London last week for, among other things, communicating the world of birds and the work of the BTO, including through the Daily Post BirdNotes column over the last 17 years. More information in this post.