Europe’s most musical bird?
Orphean Warbler Sylvia hortensis
or
Western Orphean Warbler Curruca hortensis & Eastern Orphean Warbler Curruca crassirostris
Orphean warblers are a personal favourite. They are far and away the grooviest of European songbirds, with a taste for swing in their rhythmic phrasing.
And this is one in full swing. Lesbos, 14th May 2008.
Orphean warblers breed in a tight latitudinal band of Mediterranean warmth from the western Himalaya to the Iberian peninsula, taking in the Balkans, Italy and southern France; they’re seasonal migrant songbirds moving south into Africa for the winter.
They used to be considered a single species with two forms or races, the Western Orphean of the west Mediterranean region, and the Eastern Orphean of the Balkan peninsula eastwards. Similar looking, and broadly speaking similar sounding, in the eastern form song has long been appreciated as distinctly more varied and elaborate than its western congeners.
They are now considered as two species on phylogenetic grounds: the Western Orphean Warbler Curruca hortensis and the Eastern Orphean Warbler Curruca crassirostris.
First Love? The first Eastern Orphean I ever recorded, in the south of Lesbos, hit the spot for sustained and brilliant phrasing. I think it was probably fairly newly arrived and in a phase where ‘plastic’ song was ‘crystallising’ into full song. Unfortunately his chosen spot was next to the road into Vatera, and there was activity building up to a military exercise in an adjacent area. Some of his best singing was to the backing of heavy traffic.
Lesbos, 8th May 2000.
Happy days listening to orphean warblers on an Aegean island. And Black-heading Bunting, Cinereous Bunting, Black-eared Wheatear (Eastern), Blackbird et al.
