Dear Richard,
The Yellow-wagtail group is one of the most difficult groups in the World. And
in what I'm reading in you're description of the bird a member of the Eastern
Group macronyx can't be excluded safely. Both macronyx/thunbergi are very close
related but both are diverted in various groups, eg Eastern & Western Yellow
Wagtails by some authorities. To be sure on the ID as a thunbergi, i'm surely
more material then those photographs is needed for example sound-recordings.
But as stated by Alstrom & Mild 2003l; In our opinion, however, macronyx is
not safely separable from thunbergi.
Yours,
Justin Jansen
The Netherlands
To: birding-aus <>
Subject: New Bird for Australia on Cocos
From: Richard Baxter <>
Date: Sat, 29 May 2010 07:01:03 -0700 (PDT)
Hello all,
Whilst on West Island Cocos-keeling Islands last fortnight I
located and photographed an unusual yellow wagtail on the edge of the grass at
the northern end of the runway.
I was able to obtain a couple of average photos that are only suitable for ID.
Possessing a dark head, it was immediately obvious that this bird had a short
white supercilium behind the eye. As it moved between clumps of grass and
eventually turned to face us, it's spotted neckless become visible. Whilst it
stood in that position I took three quick photos and despite several attempts
during the following five days, these were the only photos I managed to obtain.
Although there are several integration zones between yellow wagtail ssp and
many ssp are considered inseparable in some plumage states, the combination of
dark head, short white supercilium not extending in front of the eye and the
spotted necklace across the breast are diagnostic of adult male thunbergi in
fresh spring plumage and therefore Australia's first WESTERN YELLOW WAGTAIL.
If you would like a look at the photos, let me know. I've emailed them to
Simon Mustoe, hopefully he'll be able to put them on bird-o over the next few
days.
Cheers
Richard Baxter
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
=============================
|
