Wood Warbler - 1894

Phylloscopus sibilatrix

A scarce and very local summer visitor.

We greatly doubt if it occurs to the west of the Precelly Mountains. We could never meet with it in the woods at Stone Hall, or in the large covers of Trecwn, which we have visited in the summer on purpose to search for it. In the south of the county Mr. Tracy considered it scarce: "Although I can mostly procure a few specimens the latter end of April or the first week in May, I think they do not stay here to breed, for I have never found them later ; and being so well acquainted with the voices of the other Warblers, the peculiar twitter of the Wood Warbler could not have escaped me."

Mr. Dix has a very different account to give from his post on the Cardiganshire borders. Writing of this species, he says : " More generally distributed, and I think also more numerous, than in most parts of England. One is almost sure to meet with this bird in a plantation of beech and oak. It certainly prefers the beech to any other tree ; I have invariably found them upon or near this tree when there are any in the plantation."

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