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Subject: Aberdeen Reservoir winter 2012/13 [Print This Page]
Author: brendank    Time: 30/12/2012 21:10     Subject: Aberdeen Reservoir winter 2012/13

30 December 2012

Walked from Mount Nicholson to Aberdeen Reservoir today.

1 Two-barred Greenish Warbler
1 Goodson's leaf Warbler (probably claudiae)

1 Pale Thrush
10 Grey-backed Thrush

flock of Chestnut-collared Yuhina (heard)



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Author: ajohn    Time: 31/12/2012 09:35

On what basis do you consider the Leaf Warbler to be claudiae? Why not fokiensis?
My understanding was that no reliable criteria had been found to separate non-singing individuals, so it would be interesting to know what to look for.
Author: brendank    Time: 31/12/2012 14:18

Yes, I think I wasn't too clear. I agree there isn't any way to separate them. My meaning was that the bird yesterday seemed too white below to be goodsoni.  It's tiresome to type out claudiae/fokiensis not to mention "Pale-legged/Sakhalin" and now "Manchurian/Japanese".
Author: ajohn    Time: 31/12/2012 14:34

OK, I understand that. There's also, of course, 'Pintail/Swinhoe's', and now 'Arctic/Japanese/Kamchatka'.
I wonder whether some of these may actually be separable on features that have not yet been recognised.
Author: Jonathmartinez    Time: 31/12/2012 18:52

I paid some interest in all this Phylloscopus since a wild and I'm quite familiar with Claudia's Leaf Warbler that is one of the commonest bird in North West Hunan where I use to have spent quite a lot of time this past year.
To me Claudia's Leaf Warbler is a warbler that looks very uniform, the head marking have very poor contrast and appart of the border of the lower crown dark stripe (I mean the part between coronal stripe and super) the rest of the "dark" stripe are usually of the same color of the mantle. Claudia's Leaf Warbler looks very dull and quite dark and on the underpart with no clear color differencies bewteen ear coverts and breast. Given an impression of a very uniform dull pale bird.

This bird is to me far to contrasting to be a Claudia's Leaf Warbler.

I have less experience on fokiensis, but from the very fiew pictures from breeding ground available on the net, to me this species  have much whiter underparts, and a more contrasting head pattern as it seems to be the case with this bird. I don't know with very worn plumage, but in breeding plumage, it should show much more yellow on the super, but this is probably wearing off at this time of the year. To me fokiensis should looks like a godsoni with whitish underparts and traces of yellow on underparts as well.
I've been abble to compare Claudia's Leaf Warbler and Hartert's Leaf Warbler (godsoni ssp) in the field and to me there is some differencies in their call, Claudia's being more explosive a bit tit like and often given trisyllabic call, where godsoni give more flat call, bysillabic... Also Claudia's Leaf Warbler is a very vocale species, where godson seems to be more silent. fokiensis being a subspecies of Hartert's Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus godsoni), I suspect their vocalisations to be more close of godsoni rather than claudiae.
Again I think that try to recording vocalisations of all this birds and take pictures of them will help a lot to sort out this complex.
fokiensis breed in Fujian, and claudiae is a very common bird in NW Hunan, so I suspect most of this birds are more likely to belong to fokiensis, but there is good probability that Claudia's LW turn up in Hong Kong sometimes.

I published at the below link recording made in breeding ground of Claudia's LW (ID 100% sure with song sonogram) :
http://www.tragopan-asie.com/en/ ... oscopus-claudiae-2/
and a good set of pictures of Claudia's LW made by a friend of me during one of our trip at Hu Ping Shan NW Hunan (ID 100% sure with sonogram as well) :  
http://www.tragopan-asie.com/en/ ... lloscopus-claudiae/

There is two species that people rarely mention is Emei Leaf Warbler that breeds in N Guangdong (and probably elsewhere)and Ogilviegranti Leaf Warbler (see my other post) that also breed very near. Emei's LW is more likely to be misID with Claudia's LW because of their dull underparts and very little contrasting head pattern, but vocalisations should be decisive.

So rather than claudiae/fokiensis if my argument above haven't convinced you, I would suggest something like ogilviegranti/claudiae/fokiensis/emeiensis:-)
All of them breeding in a perimeter of 1000 km from HK, some of them much more close than that.

All the best,

Jonathan
Author: Jonathmartinez    Time: 31/12/2012 19:00

the one in the below post is to me very interesting, even I wont try to tell what it is. I'm very struggle about how greyish he looks like...
http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/view ... &extra=page%3D1


All the best,

Jonathan
Author: brendank    Time: 31/12/2012 19:05

I believe there is some misunderstanding. I believe the bird in the above photographs is a Greenish Warbler based on behavior and the complete lack of a median crown stripe.

Here is a photo of the Blyth's Leaf Warbler. I didn't get a great photo but at least in binoculars it looked quite whitish to me underneath.



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Author: Jonathmartinez    Time: 31/12/2012 19:12

quite funny, I thought that the coronal stripe was not visible on the picture because of the angle, i agrre it fit much better for Two-barred.
Luckily the bird in the new pic also show quite darke eyestripe and head pattern as well, but hard to judge from this picture. Anyway my comments above may be of use for the all subject.

All the best,

Jonathan
Author: brendank    Time: 4/01/2013 14:50

4 January 2012

1 (tentatively IDed) Yellow-streaked Warbler (see comments below)
1 Pale-legged/Sakhalin Leaf Warbler
2 Blyth's Leaf Warbler (both white-bellied)
1 Ashy Drongo (leucogensis)
1 Black-naped Monarch
1 Manchurian/Japanese Bush Warbler

When I noticed this bird I had no idea what it was. It had a unique behavior being in the lower canopy but frequently foraging on the trunk or low branches of the trees almost like a treecreeper. Never on the ground. It appeared roughly the size of Eastern Crowned Warbler. Very nondescript, plain brown above with no wing bars, pale buff below. Bill fine and lower mandible yellow. Legs pale.

At the time all I could think of was Yellow-streaked or Pale-footed Bush Warbler.

This are digiscoped from my phone of my SLR screen so not too clear. I am not at home right now so can't upload them. Any thoughts?





[ Last edited by brendank at 4/01/2013 15:05 ]

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Author: brendank    Time: 4/01/2013 18:36

Photos of the mystery warbler from today. Photos make it look like Dusky Warbler but behavior was very different from that as described above. No calls were heard in the about 5 minutes I was following it.

Not sure if the behavior fits Yellow-streaked Warbler or not since I don't have enough experience with that species. This bird was never on the ground and YS Warbler are said not be as terrestial as Dusky or Radde's.







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Author: cyanophile    Time: 19/01/2013 23:03

2013-1-19 Aberdeen Reservoir

Emerald Dove (Female)x1
Red-flanked Bluetail x2
Black-naped Monarch x2
Rufous-tailed Robin
Pale Thrush x1
Japanese Thrush x1
Grey-backed Thrush
Asian Stubtail
Daurian Redstart
Ashy Drongo (heard)
Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher x5

I also saw a Seicersus warbler species, but I couldn't find out whether it was a White-spectacled Warbler, a Bianchi's Warbler or a Plain-tailed Warbler.


Emerald Dove (Female)

[ Last edited by cyanophile at 19/01/2013 23:15 ]

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Author: brendank    Time: 20/01/2013 13:58

can you tell us the exact location of the seicercus warbler? I am interested finding it.
Author: brendank    Time: 27/01/2013 18:33

27 January 2013

Rather quiet today and no sign of the Martens's Warbler.

1 Pale-legged/Sakhalin Warbler
2 Grey-headed Flycatcher
1 Hainan Blue Flycatcher (not seen by me)
Author: wgeoff    Time: 28/01/2013 13:37

When doing bird lists, can we use the format

English name followed by number and/or details

This makes it much easier to collect and use records directly.
Thanks
Author: cyanophile    Time: 3/02/2013 00:00

2013-2-1 (9:30-11:00am) Aberdeen Reservoir

Black-naped Monarch (male)
Black-winged Cuckooshrike X2
Grey-backed Thrush
Japanese Thrush
Red-throated Flycatcher

(I went home and read from some older post that we could differentiate the Red-breasted Flycatcher from Red-throated Flycatcher by the upper tail covert and the base of the lower bill. I find from the photos that the base of the lower bill of this bird quite dark so I guess it is Red-throated Flycatcher. Please correct me if my identification is wrong)






[ Last edited by cyanophile at 3/02/2013 00:31 ]

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Author: brendank    Time: 3/02/2013 11:54

I think is probably the female Hainan Blue Flycatcher seen a few times last week. The bill is long and dark, the breast is washed with orange, and the tail looks reddish.
Author: cyanophile    Time: 4/02/2013 23:24

Quote:
Original posted by brendank at 3/02/2013 11:54
I think is probably the female Hainan Blue Flycatcher seen a few times last week. The bill is long and dark, the breast is washed with orange, and the tail looks reddish.
Thank you for the information!

I think a flycatcher I saw at the same spot on 23-12-2012 was also a Hainan Blue Flycatcher female (shown in the photos below). (Probably the same bird.)

  

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