Pleske's Blue Tit

Post date: Jan 07, 2011 8:56:28 PM

A coincidence this week has left me feeling with that 'sick in your stomach' feeling, you know the one, when you realise that something has gone very wrong or you suddenly discover you've lost an something that you were very attached too? I've recently been going through my old notebooks as I put together my most coveted list, my 'find' list, as I now have to look back to remember if I have 'found' birds that I really should have but may not have done (there wont be any grey 'relocated' birds on it, hopefully!) A small note about a 'funny' Blue Tit got no more than a cursory glance. Then today, a rainy lunch break had me trawling the bird sites when on the European Stop Press pages I came across this:

This is a Pleske's Blue Tit, apparently this is a Blue Tit come Azure Tit integrate, this one has been found in France and they are apparently "not uncommonly known from parts of western Russia"

Now, my notebook from 1994 October 8th reads...well read for yourself...

!!!!!!!!!!!! Couple of points here, my description of the blythi Lesser Whitethroat isn't great, in the early nineties I think any late bird was banded around as 'probably of the eastern blythi race' and we used to associate that race with warm brown upperparts, the subtleties of no contrast with head or ear coverts for Eastern weren't born then. Also the cut line is due to the descriptive bit being at the top of the following page. Oh and the drawing ghosting through the paper is Norfolk's first twitchable Red-flanked Bluetail at Great Yarmouth, the observer of that bird kindly released the news of that one (he obviously didn't go to Mundesley much).

Anyway talking tits, the one I saw was ringed and pretty sure it got photographed, none of this digital nonsense, these would have had to be done in a dark room or on a slide or something. I think I may need to email some old friends!