Gul Sanger på Island, finderberetning af Yann Kolbeinsson (in english)

Gul Sanger på Island

In the afternoon of 10th September 2003, I decided to head out on the Reykjanes peninsula in hope of finding some newly-arrived vagrants (especially hoping for American shorebirds). The left-overs of ex-hurricane Fabian had been blowing along the south and south-west coast of Iceland for the previous 15 hours (and were still blowing), giving myself some hope of finding anything!
My first stop was at a 30 year old tree plantation based on the hill of Þorbjörn (a small mountain), north of Grindavík. There are mainly spruce trees, with regular lines of birch in between. As usually I was following those birch lines when I started hearing an unusual call in the distance; a sort of “chip”. So I headed towards it until the bird stopped. There I noticed one Common Redpoll Carduelis flammea, when the “chip” started again! I went slowly towards it and made a little pishing, when I noticed this bright yellow bird appearing on a branch of a spruce 4 m in front of me! I immediately saw that this bird couldn’t be anything else than a wood-warbler of some sort, and when I looked at it through the binoculars it became evident that there was a female/first-winter YELLOW WARBLER Dendroica petechia, my first in Iceland!!!!!! I had recently got home from N-America where I stayed from end of August 2002 till July 2003, which undoubtely brought me unvaluable experience with wood-warblers!

Fortunately for me, the bird just sat on its branch for 40-60 seconds, allowing great views, when I thought it might be best to call other birders! The plain yellow plumage was very typical (like a lemon), with the big black eye standing well out of the otherwise plain face. The back was just slightly darker, and the legs very pale. And my camera was in the car…

Despite a lot of searching during the next three hours (by seven birders!), the Yellow Warbler was not seen again while, in the search, I saw a Willow Warbler Phylloscopus trochilus briefly which also disappeared. This was probably due to the late time of day (16:30 – 19:30), strong SE-winds (around 46 km/h) and the local birds apparently nervous. I went again in the morning of 11th September, along with Gunnlaugur Pétursson and Gunnar Þór Hallgrímsson, but this time the weather was a lot worse (rain and E-winds around 54 km/h!) and we only caught a glimpse of a warbler-like (European or American) bird flying through the birch & willows and disappearing. On both days a Merlin Falco columbarius stayed in this tree plantation…

There has been one accepted record of this species in Iceland (Oct. 1996), while one record from August 2000 (bird caught at sea) is awaiting decision by the Icelandic Rarities Committee. Two years ago I also noticed one bird in a collection at the Westman Islands, which apparently was caught at or near the islands some years ago (still waiting for information…). So my bird will probably be the fourth record for Iceland, and as far as I know, there are 9 records in the WP outside Iceland (3 in UK, 2 in Azores, 2 in Madeira & 2 in Ireland), so this bird is probably the 13th for the WP.

Up to and including 2000, 14 species of wood-warblers totalling 39 individuals had been recorded in Iceland, with two more individuals in 2001-2002 awaiting decision by the I.R.C. (excluding the Yellow Warblers).


Yann Kolbeinsson
Reykjavík – 11th September 2003