Blast From The Past Finds - Western Subalpine Warbler

On the 12th of April, 2009, myself and my dad made our way down to Wexford from Dublin.

The day before had seen a particular low point in Irishbirding, when one of the Irish scumbags (most Irish birders of a certain age could number the suspects on one hand) created a fake email address/identity on the old Irish Bird Network (IBN) email server, in order to slag off the Two-Barred Crossbill found by myself and Robert Vaughan the previous autumn. (They will always say they don't care what you find, but go to extraordinary lengths to make fake IDs to take a pop at them 😂).

Having not put out rare bird news of my finds for several years, I decided it was time to fight back, and the best ways to fight back against the clown show that is the scumbag sect of Irish birding was to 

A. Find a shit load of birds. And...

B. Put their finds, IDs and standards etc under the microscope. (All remarkably effective).

It didn't take long to produce the goods. 

Enjoying a pleasant Spring morning in Wexford, we began checking the various lanes on Carnesore, searching for birds like Hoopoe.

And it was whilst checking what Clan Foley had come to call "The Hoopoe Lane" (there had been two Hoopoe together in the DuneS at the end of this particular lane the year previous), and walking along the road that I picked up a bright little bird flitting between bushes at the roadside. 

A second flitting, caught in my bins revealed and orangey colour, before the bird flitted away from me to the next low bush, calling and showing white tail sides as it went. I raised my bins again and there it was, mooching around the top of this small bush. Subalpine Warbler!!!

I whistled for the old man who was a ways back up the road and he came running, but the bird was now performing well, and we were even able to set up scopes and relax and enjoy the bird.

At the time, it wasn't majorly important, but clearly a Western Subalpine.

These images by Tom Shevlin are all that seems to be out there these days, and even Tom's website seems to be redundant at present.

I know there were other birders who managed snaps at the time, though where these would exist, if they exist all, who can say.

The bird showed well for numerous twitchers over the course of the day, present up to the afternoon, but was not present the next day (typical for a mainland bird with that amount of habitat available to it).

It was a good week for Subalpines, when the following week an Eastern Subalpine Warbler was found on Saltee.

Though I did not see this bird, I subsequently, a couple of years later, twigged this as an Eastern Subalpine Warbler. It would, however, in typical Irish fashion, be some many years before the ID was recognized.

If there is anyone out there with images of the Carnesore bird hidden away on a hard drive, would be great to see them.

Both Subalps (Western and Eastern, Moltoni's is yet to occur) remain quite rare in Ireland, with steady trends for both. This is the only one I've found, though I have seen several, including autumn birds.

Another true birder's bird. 😍😎