Tim writes: The Yellow-browed Warbler is an enigma. It breeds in Siberia east of the Urals and winters in Malaysia and Thailand. Yet it occurs with great regularity in Britain, usually in autumn. To arrive in Britain would involve a journey of at least 4000 km, but flying in totally the wrong direction to its wintering grounds. More than 300 Yellow-browed Warblers occur in Britain annually, mostly in autumn but a small number also overwinter, and successfully too. This is one such overwintering individual photographed in early March 2018 near Barnsley in South Yorkshire. With so many birds occurring so regularly it might be that a new migration pattern is developing, with some birds wintering in Africa (at least one has occurred in Senegal in December).
Its scientific name, Phylloscopus inornatus, is also a bit of a puzzle. Phylloscopus means leaf-gleaner and it is the same genus as Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Wood Warbler. But inornatus means undecorated or inornate, yet it has more stripes and bars than its undecorated cousins. That is because when Edward Blyth first described it new to science back in 1842, he thought it was a type of Goldcrest but lacking the golden crown. So Blyth named it Regulus inornatus, the undecorated Goldcrest or Kinglet.
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No autumn is complete for me without seeing one of these splendid waifs. They are the migrant of autumn and I never get tired of seeing them or trying to photograph them ( not in Tim’s class though) I visit Shetland and Fair Isle most autumns these days and to see one of these in the classic Fair Isle angelica is so special. A colleague and I once saw 22 in a day can’t remember if we saw anything else that day but the Yellow Browed made it very special.
Thank you Tim for the interesting background information.