Thanks, Philip. What do you mean by "incomplete"? Does the collar stop
near the back of the neck? If so, would you still be able to see the
two half collars if you were observing from above the bird?
Getting back to the Pizzey illustrations, I guess it must be a mistake
if they typically have it. Can anyone confirm that it's still not shown
in Ed. 8?
I also noticed that in the two small pictures of House and Tree Sparrows
flying, from above, the House Sparrow picture shows a faint collar not
shown on the Tree Sparrow. I wonder if there's been a little mix up
there. If so, it's interesting that it hasn't been picked up before -
perhaps noone's really looking at this species.
Peter Shute
Philip Veerman wrote on Wednesday, 3 October 2007 12:44 PM:
> Good observation. Checking out also the illustration I did of them
> and the photos of the specimens in my honours thesis about these
> birds, yes they should have an incomplete whitish collar around the
> back of the neck (but not all the way around). But I can't answer
> about whether they ever not have the collar, just that they typically
> do.
>
> Philip
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