As Oskars Keišs, the head of the Ornithology Laboratory at the University of Latvia, explained to Latvian Radio, German researchers from the University of Oldenburg in Pape are conducting a study on bird orientation, i.e. how birds find their way to nesting sites and back to their wintering grounds in autumn.
While catching and ringing warblers, coincidentally, a Cetti's warbler has also been caught, ringed and released. As Keišs explained, the Cetti's warbler lives in southern Europe and is not a migratory species, but it is also slowly spreading northwards; however, records of this species are rare in Poland and Germany, so the bird can be considered a 'visitor' in Latvia.
Keišs pointed out that the chances of seeing this bird in Latvia are close to zero, as it is a small, brown bird with no distinctive features, and therefore such species are usually only detected by capture.
The Cetti's warbler is a small bird of the passerine family, named after the Italian zoologist Francesco Cetti.
