Dutch Birding volume 30 (2008) no 3

Eastern Crowned Warbler at Katwijk aan Zee in October 2007

On 5 October 2007, an Eastern Crowned Warbler Phylloscopus coronatus stayed from morning until dusk at Katwijk aan Zee, Zuid-Holland, the Netherlands. It was observed by several 100s of birders and identified by the combination of strong face pattern with dark side-crown and dark eye-stripe and long whitish supercilium and whitish median crown-stripe, leaf-green upperparts with pale-fringed flight-feathers, pale base of lower mandible, pale legs, double wing-bar (upper one inconspicuous) and yellowish undertail-coverts. The latter character excludes Western Crowned Warbler P occipitalis (which is a short-distance migrant and, therefore, an even more unlikely vagrant). The bird was mostly silent but it called irregularly and the bird's call or subsong was sound-recorded (a series of slightly descending chup notes, varying in frequency), although it was not 100% certain that the recorded sounds actually came from the Eastern Crowned Warbler. This is the fourth record for Europe and the Western Palearctic, with previous ones on Helgoland, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, on 4 October 1843 (collected); Jæren, Norway, on 30 September 2002 (trapped); and Kokkola, Finland, on 23 October 2004.

Casper Zuyderduyn, Schorpioen 54, 2221 NA Katwijk aan Zee, Nederland
(casper.zuyderduynplanet.nl)