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Not
something I would normally notice (in the field) and I can only remember once
having held one of these birds (that was a road killed one about 35 years ago)
but the secondary feathers on this bird, especially as showing on the photo on
the right are amazingly wide. I don't think I have seen that before on any
passerine. If I was using that photo as reference for drawing it, I almost
wouldn't believe it but I can't imagine that Geoffrey altered that aspect on the
computer.
Philip
Roger
- Interesting that you’ve got a few around, as not reported much recently,
so I’ll copy to the chatline. I’ve heard the odd one at Callum Brae.
I’d think yours are probably heading off rather than about to stay over,
though. Jack and I had previously noted that a few do stay over, so I
included the species in last Winter’s survey, and not a single one was recorded
in the 8 weeks to 31 July.
One
of the ID points is that once again there’s a bill thing, with the male having
black bill and gape when breeding. In the below, your bird is at upper
left, the two in the below middle are breeding males (from H11, a previous year)
and I think the other two are probably juveniles (yellow gape).
g
From: Roger
Curnow [
Sent: Sunday, 17 April 2011
9:19 PM
To: Geoffrey Dabb
Subject:
attached
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