There were far worse places to be on such a beautiful day today, but it was a shame it didn't show.
As we discussed, tristis can be easily confused with the eastern/south-eastern 'abietinus' race of Chiffchaff, although abietinus usually appear more grey and white and call differently to tristis (your bird sounded spot on for tristis). In short though, the current identification of tristis is not fully understood, in no small part due to our lack of knowledge of the integration between abietinus and tristis, so when attempting to assign a bird to tristis it should display a full suite of pro-tristis characters, which are (roughly and in no particular order):
Brown on the upperparts with a buff (often likened to macintosh colour) wash along the flanks and on the ear coverts.
No yellow on the plumage, apart from the bend of the wing (which can usually be seen on foraging/perched birds).
No olive tones in the plumage, apart from the edges of the remiges and rectrices.
Apparently all black bill.
Plaintive, monosyllabic 'peep' (to my ears) calls, others transcibe it 'iiihp' and yours was 'cheep/peep', either way it always reminds me of the sound of a little lost chick!
Any bird showing features contrary to those above is probably best not assigned to tristis.
Here's hoping it sticks around, but it must get mighty cold up there which could force it further down, somewhere warmer.
Sorry I missed you Ian. I had an unavoidable appointment at Morrisons! The bird was on the west side of the resr between SD905179 and SD905178. First seen at approx. 09:45 hrs in a Hawthorn right next to the track alongside if the resr. It was calling continuously with a squeaky "peep", sounding a bit like a juv. bird. A call I had never heard before. Similar size to a Common Chiffchaff the upperparts were greyish green. Underparts off-white. Short fine black bill. An off-white supercilium with a thin black horizontal line running back from the bill, through the eye. There was a black edge to the wing near the carpal joint, with a small area of white below the black. The tail was relatively long. Overall plumage tones were cold. It moved up into the plantation above the footpath and was feeding actively, hovering to catch insects. Climb the steps from Trap Farm car park, walk west along the dam, then go through kissing gate and walk north along footpath on west side of resr. The bird was last seen at approx. 11:00 hrs in plantation above Horse Chesnut Tree next to a bench. It may be worth walking further north and taking the bridleway which forks off to the left through the plantation. Alternatively if you cross the quarry at the west end of the dam immediately to the north of the WTW, and go through a kissing gate it is possible to walk along the ridge above the plantation. There was no sign of it at 16:00 hrs.
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The Watergrove Skyline (January 2010) - before desecration.
At Watergrove Resr. this morning Steve Atkins had a Chiffchaff showing characteristics of the race 'tristis', including the rather distinctive call (I only say 'showing characteristics' due to the potential difficulty in identifying 'pure' tristis, off Steve description it sounded spot on!). He was kind enough to give me a call and I got myself round there at just before 12, although typically I never saw the bird despite 2 hours hard searching! I was fortunate enough to hear it calling briefly at the same spot Steve had it (at c 12:40) but was about 50 metres away at the time, so by the time I got to the bushes it had been calling from it had vanished yet again!
I'll leave Steve to inform us all where exactly it was, don't want to steal too much of his thunder .
Steve.........are you out there?.......................
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