This is a series of photos taken in the UAE last Sunday 16th September. I found this bird with Dave Clarke at Green Mubazarrah near Al Ain. At first glance, I called it as a Rufous Bushchat (it perched on a rock and pumped its tail dramatically) - I commented on how cold grey/brown eastern Bushchats were compared to the galactotes form I'd seen in Morocco in the spring! Dave said - "that's not a Bushchat", and of course as soon as we put bins on it, it cearly wasn't! My next thought was White-throated Robin - simply because it appeared too large to be a warbler, at least one likely to be in acacia scrub.... but it wasn't that either. Within ten seconds, it was plain we were looking at an extraordinary warbler. We considered and rejected Great Reed Warber, and seriously considered Clamorous Reed (of some obscure form I didn't know) - but they didn't fit. So rather quickly, I suggested OLIVE-TREE WARBLER ..... except that would be a first for the UAE, on my 3rd day in the country!

But what else could it be, and is there enough here to clinch the ID? These pictures are cropped direct from the originals without adjustment - only the last (big) one has been altered to give a better impression of colour etc. In life, the bird was rather greyer and colder than shown in the small pictures. I cannot over-emphasise that this was a HUGE warbler. I had not seen Upcher's at that stage (but did later in the week) - this was one reason for my hesitancy - but this bird dwarfed the Upcher's I saw. It was in a bush with an Eastern Olivaceous at one point, and was perhaps 20% bigger.

I dd not (alas) note wing length, but the legs were a blue-grey colour, the bill was absurdly strong with an yellow/orange tinged lower mandible, and the bird behaved extraordinarily - cocking and dropping its tail frequently almost in the manner of ..... well, a Bushchat!

The bird was relocated by Nick Moran and Steve James two days later - Nick wrote :

".....a 'huge-billed huge warbler' as I said to Steve when I phoned him with it!

To my mind only Clamorous Reed Warbler or Olive-tree Warbler were in the running from the start for the latter. We'd already had good views of Barred & Upcher's and this bird was bigger than both (put together?!). It had a huge bill with prominent yellow lower mandible, long & sturdy blue-grey (steely) legs, rather pale greyish uppers (with a hint of green in the rump - Steve - and a faint buff-brown tinge to the rest of the uppers), dark remiges including pale-edged tertials and a long primary projection (Steve saw this better than me - I wouldn't like to start talking percentage projection on my views). It did have a reasonable supercilium, which extended behind the eye (Birds of the Middle East is the only ref I've seen so far that states this is OK for Olive-tree). Steve noticed that it had a rounded tail though none of us saw any white in the retrices. The bird was behaving reticently, often sitting still for long periods then moving rather clumsily through the branches. It rarely gave totally unexposed views (and would have been a total nightmare to digiscope, had I even tried).

Would anyone like to try and answer my questions:

1) Can this be anything except an Olive-tree?

2) Is it firmly identifiable on the evidence presented here?

Looking forward to comments!