In relation to birds seen on Blundell's Ck Rd, I had a look at Morecombe,
who, unlike the Pizzey and Day books, provides illustrations of some
immature Robinss. On that basis, I think the birds were immature Flame
Robins. They, like female Pink Robins have, as Anthony noted, "a buff or
tan coloured wing bar".
Rick
At 09:50 AM 14/03/2005, you wrote:
Female and juvenile robins can be difficult to separate in the field.
You could possibly get Scarlet, Flame, Red-capped, Rose and Pink Robins
in the area.
Red-capped is least likely but they've been up there before. Mark
Clayton can attest to that.
The female Pink Robin is the only one of the five to have a buff or tan
coloured wing bar. The other four have white or whitish wing bars, with
the Flame Robin having the whitest wing bar. Female Pink Robin also has
buff tail edges instead of white like the Flame.
Juveniles are another story. The Bander's Aid publication has a guide to
identifying juveniles in the hand. I don't have this with me at the
moment though.
The robins were most likely Flame Robins, given the recent reports of
them being up there, however, this is the right time of year for Pink
Robins to be moving about in the landscape. You can find them just about
anywhere in winter, as far north as the central coast. There's even a
record of one on Montague Island. It is more likely though that Pink
Robins are on their own rather than in small groups.
Can someone with more robin experience add anything to these comments?
Cheers
Anthony
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Kuhn
Sent: Sunday, 13 March 2005 10:33 AM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Diamand dove + query
Mary Gorman and I had very good views of a Diamond Dove at about 10.15
on
Saturday 12 March, about 2/3 of the way down Blundell's Ck Rd.
Also often feeding on the road itself were at least two pairs of what
looked most like female Pink Robins. Since it seems unlikely that they
were
Pink Robins, can anyone suggest what they might really have been?
Rick Kuhn
____________________________________________________________
School of Social Sciences/Arts phone +61 (2) 612-53851
Australian National University fax +61 (2) 612-52222
ACT 0200 email
Australia www.anu.edu.au/polsci/rick
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