Friday, October 07, 2016

Siberian Stonechat Donna Nook

I have included all the terrible, small and OOF images to assist any assessment of race of this bird; it was one of the most flighty and least approachable stonechats I have ever seen -- in the field the distinctly deep orange rump was particularly noticeable and immediately suggested something other than the paler maura that we had seen in the past though I did have a bird like tis at Donna Nook in early November 1980 that I always considered to be probably Stejnegeri - I have to repeat that the majority of these shots are very small in the frame, heavily cropped and therefore do not show great detail -the longest two uppertail coverts appear to have narrow black shaft streaks - comparing the perched shot with the bird looking towards the camera with the 1cy male in Martin Garner's Autumn Challenge series page 127 there are some close similarities -- any comments welcome

















2 comments:

Phil Hyde said...

This bird looks remarkably similar to the one I watched at Landguard today, in all aspects. Demarcated white throat quite striking, peachy rump and warm peachy-brown (is that a colour?!) overall. Its behaviour (Landguard bird) was also elusive, flighty, and showed a preference for perching low down. Good candidate I reckon.
Phil

Phil Hyde said...

This bird appears identical to the mooted Stejneger's Stonechat at Landguard, as we discussed. Behaviour also very similar. Good for Lincolnshire's first I reckon,
Phil