Hi Birders,
Evan Beaver claimed to have seen a Forest Kingfisher at Wallacia, SW of
Sydney on 21/1/06. However he did not say how he identified it as a Forest
Kingfisher. The regular southern limit for Forest Kingfishers in NSW is
about the Manning River(Taree area), with occasional sightings further
south, the most recent being 29/11/1998 at Hurstville Grove.
However many people mis-identify Forest Kingfishers, not understanding that
as the feathers wear on the front of the Sacred Kingfisher post breeding
(from all the movement in and out of the nesting holes, the orange tips of
the breast feathers wear off). The breast feathers of Sacred Kingfishgers is
basically white but with orange tips thus giving the Sacred Kingfisher, when
it arrives in Eastern Australia in spring in its new plumage of a
yellow/orange breast colour. As the feathers wear they lose the orange and
expose the rest of the white feather giving the bird a white-breasted look,
which togetrher with the blue wings, makes a male Sacred Kingfisher in
particular (the females tend to be more greenish), look similar to a Forest
Kingfisher.
The main diagnostic feature that easily seperates a Forest Kingfisher and a
Sacred Kingfisher under those circumstances are the white dollar marks in
the underwing, seen easily when the bird flies, just like a Dollarbird.
Alan Morris
Records Officer, Birding NSW
--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
'unsubscribe birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
