birding-aus

Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?

To: David James <>
Subject: Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?
From: Martin Butterfield <>
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 10:35:56 +1000
As the range of both these species is (unfortunately) some 1000s of
kilometres from anywhere that I am likely to be in the near future I have
not paid full attention to this discussion.  However given the subtleties
of distinguishing the species on field marks I wonder whether thought has
been given to uniting them as a single species.

I realise that until Apple or Google release their DNA sequencing app the
nuances of appearance will have to do for field work, but I wonder if a
taxonomist could comment on the degree of difference between the genetic
composition of the two species and whether they could be considered for
lumping?

Martin


On 13 September 2013 19:52, David James <> wrote:

> Hi Nikolas,
>
> The two species are similar looking, everyone agrees. Seeing the two
> species together a few minutes apart or at the same time is not unusual, so
> it is not only a circumstantial argument but a dubious one too. If you can
> only see one bird pictured I would politely suggest that you are missing
> the detail. The differences are subtle, yet obvious to an experienced eye.
> I lived in Townsville, where all 3 occur, for 11 years, studied them
> throughout their Australian ranges in the field and looked at museum skins
> for my ID article, and have since found the characters I proposed to
> be fail safe. I think the 'streaking' on the underparts of the first photo
> is very narrow shaft streaks (only noticeable with too much scrutiny) and
> is due to pale feather edges on the 2nd, so quite different (hence the term
> I use, 'shaggy' rather than 'streaky'). The first has a yellow belly strip,
> the second a yellow belly wash. The first has a more orange tinge to the
> fleshy
>  part of the gape, where as the 2nd has a gape all the same SHADE of
> yellow but a little BRIGHTER on the fleshy bit. The angles are not good for
> comparing the shape of the stripe. The bills are different shapes, long,
> fine, decurved in the 1st, stubbier and chunkier in the 2nd. The shape of
> the ear patch is unreliable. The size of the ear patch tends to be bigger
> in Y-S and to my eye it looks bigger in the 2nd photo. All these characters
> and others are explained much more clearly in my article, but unfortunately
> I don't have a scan to send you.
>
> ==============================
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Nikolas Haass <>
> To: David James <>; Birding Aus <
> >
> Sent: Friday, 13 September 2013 1:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?
>
>
>
> Hi David,
>
> I see your and Lloyds reasoning for the two-bird theory. However, the two
> pictures were taken a few minutes apart from each other, and to my memory
> Jeff said he had never seen more than one bird at a time. So, I am not sure
> if the differences seen in the two pictures are really species-related or
> rather photography-related (funny angle, different light, frozen snapshot
> that may or may not show the typical posture...). We all agree that the
> second picture shows a Yellow-spotted Honeyeater. I can only see one bird
> pictured, not two: If you look carefully at the details such as the exact
> shape of uneven areas in the naked skin of the gape as well as the detailed
> shape of the ear patch, they appear identical in both pictures. There is
> also no obvious difference in bill shape between the two pictures, although
> this is hard to tell because the bill is open in the first picture. I also
> don't see a difference in the intensity of stripes on the underparts.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Nikolas
>
> ----------------
> Nikolas Haass
> 
> Brisbane, QLD
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: David James <>
> To: Birding Aus <>
> Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 12:02 PM
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?
>
>
> Nikolas has sent me the other photo and I agree with Lloyd. The first is a
> Graceful and the second is a Yellow-spotted. It would be worth putting the
> second photo on the blog so everyone can see. The characters I mentioned in
> my first post should highlight the main differences between the two birds
>
> Cheers,
> David James
> Sydney
> ==============================
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to: 
>
> http://birding-aus.org/
> ===============================
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to: 
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ===============================
>



-- 
Martin Butterfield
http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
===============================

To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 

http://birding-aus.org
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU