Lesser Whitethroat - 1894

Sylvia curruca

This species is not included in their lists either by Mr. Dix or by Mr. Tracy. It does not appear to visit the adjoining county of Cardiganshire, which is far richer in the smaller summer birds than Pembrokeshire. We have, ourselves, never met with it, and it is a little bird that cannot easily escape detection. We have seen no specimens of it in any collection of stuffed birds in the county. We only admit it doubtfully on account of information supplied us by Mr. Mathias, of Haverfordwest, who tells us that when he was a boy of 14 or 15 he found a nest of this species at Lamphey, being at that time well acquainted with both the Common and Lesser Whitethroats through having taken the nests of both of them on many occasions in Gloucestershire. He adds that in the summer of 1882, a pair of these little birds frequented Hayguard Hay bottom in the parish of Dale, where he watched them closely on several days hoping to find the nest, " but they were too much for me, nettles and thorns making more impression on my hands than they did fifty years before."

Mathew M.A. 1894, Birds of Pembrokeshire and it's Islands