Big score at Shite Lane!!

Had an hour this am before I was supposed to go to work so I decided to chance my arm with the light easterlies overnight. Out round the head at first light for 2 wheatears, while a skove down the top lane produced a late swift. Not much doing then, but I still had Shite Lane to go...

Quiet enough there too at first, before a weird phyllosc call caught my ear - kind of like a willow warbler "hoo-eet" call but higher pitched and thinner, kind of like someone doing a bad impression of a willow warbler. Views of the bird proved scarily interesting, clearly a phyllosc, with a pale grey head, a wide supercilium, greeny fringes on the primaries, dark legs and really clean pale grey/white underneath. When a willow warbler hopped up beside it, it was clearly bigger! "Help" I thought, "a Bonelli's Warbler", before ringing and texting frantically! By the time other folks arrived, I'd heard that the call fitted Western, as Eastern should give a "chip" type call apparently.

A couple of folks heard the call & got on the bird again briefly a short time later, and it showed well briefly again this pm, but was seemingly elusive for the rest of the time. Hopefully it'll behave better tomorrow!