Willow Warbler - Alaska

On 23 August Paul Lehman found an ABA Code-4 Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) in the boneyard at Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.  It represents the 8th fall record, all from the same location where all of the current North American records of this species have been discovered. Previous records are from 2002, four birds in 2007, and from 2008. Willow Warbler was on the cover of NAB57 [1].

Willow Warbler is a slender leaf-warbler with a long primary projection, rather plain with a pale supercilium.  It breeds from Western Europe across Siberia to the Russian Far East.  They breed in deciduous and mixed forests where birches predominate and also on tundra with scrub and dense willows. All populations are migratory with most breeders wintering in Africa, south of the Sahara. The species is common to abundant with an estimated population of 34 million pairs in Europe (Handbook of the Birds of North America, Volume 11).