Will the real Sykes’s Warbler please stand up? Breeding data support specific status forHippolais rama and H. caligata, with comments on the Arabian population of

In early-January 2000, one of us (GMK) received a communication from Michael Walters, the former Curator of Eggs at the Natural History Museum (Tring), concerning a recent short note by Castell (1999, see below) within these pages, in which a nest, apparently of Hippolais rama, was depicted. MW commented: ‘However, in the photograph of the nest accompanying the note, the eggs do not appear to be those of rama, which has a very distinctive egg quite different from those of all other species of Hippolais

PETER CASTELL AND GUY M. KIRWAN, Sandgrouse 27 (1): 30-36 2005