kkoel

Green-backed Flycatcher 綠背姬鶲
Po Shan Road
21/10/11

Thanks to Brendan for discovering this beautiful bird!

[ Last edited by kkoel at 21/10/2011 23:57 ]

kkoel

Thanks for everyone's comments!

Brendan: could this apparent "trend" be the result of a) small sample size from HK and b) uncertainty in identifying female type "Narcissus Flycatchers"? The population of elisae and owstoni may not be very big, so we may not be able to observe the effect of elisae being commoner in autumn than spring. Perhaps just so happened that one or two more tame elisae have been present in spring before!

kkoel

One more record shot from the same day to show the back of the bird - there is no hint of yellow rump patch, the lores are not pure yellow, and the wings are not blackish, which support sexing as female. However as Mike pointed out, the intensity of coloring suggests possibility of this being a juvenile male. It's now October, so is it possible that first-calendar males moult into male-type plumage only at a later stage?

The direct link for the Narcissus complex by Nial Moores is as follows:
http://www.birdskorea.org/Birds/ ... atchers-types.shtml

[ Last edited by kkoel at 24/10/2011 20:22 ]

kkoel

Re John's comment, from the paper by Nial Moores it seems that the contrast between rusty-tipped outer greater coverts and the white-tipped inner greater coverts (which I noticed during observation but didn't think would actually be relevant) and the relatively plain greater and median coverts suggest elisae over owstoni. In addition, the yellow underparts and uniformly coloured cream eye-ring also supports this being an elisae.

Re Brendan, actually the under-tail coverts of this bird are white and contrasts with the yellow belly, but due to the under-storey lighting the photos looked yellower than in the field!

[ Last edited by kkoel at 26/10/2011 18:04 ]