HKBWS BBS 香港觀鳥會新聞組


    
      
        HKBWS BBS 香 港 觀 鳥 會 新 聞 組
        (http://www.hkbws.org.hk/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl)
      

        Discussion Area 討論區 >> Photo Gallery 相片分享 I >>  Dark-sided Flycatcher 烏鶲 
        
(Message started by: KK Hui on Sep 6^th, 2003, 8:03am)

Title: Dark-sided Flycatcher 烏鶲
Post by KK Hui on Sep 6^th, 2003, 8:03am

368 Dark-sided Flycatcher 烏鶲
Mai Po Nature Reserve 米埔自然保護區
05/9/2003
EOS-10D, EF500/4L IS + EF1.4x
http://www.hkbws.org.hk/fileServer/PhotoG/kkhui/kkhuisflycatcher01.jpg

Would anyone please provide ID for this small bird? A flycatcher of some sort? ???

Best
kk
---------------
www.geocities.com/kkhui_001

Title: Re: ??? Flycatcher
Post by Daniel CK Chan on Sep 6^th, 2003, 8:54am

KK
Have you tried your magic cloth? ???
Best
Daniel

Title: Re: ??? Flycatcher
Post by Falcon on Sep 6^th, 2003, 12:57pm

It is a Flycatcher, a Grey-Streak Flaycatcher.

Title: Re: ??? Flycatcher
Post by KK Hui on Sep 10^th, 2003, 2:22pm

A Grey-streaked Flycatcher ah!

Thanks, Falcon, for the ID ;D

Best
kk
----------------
www.geocities.com/kkhui_001

Title: Re: ??? Flycatcher
Post by Falcon on Sep 11^th, 2003, 8:57pm

Thx for the correction KK.

Title: Re: ??? Flycatcher
Post by Paul Leader on Sep 15^th, 2003, 5:46pm

This is not a Grey-streaked Flycatcher; it is a Dark-sided Flycatcher.

To identify this bird, it is useful to age it first. The lack of obvious pale fringes to the tertials and pale tips to the greater coverts indicates that this is an adult (see the cover of the Avifauna of HK for comparison with a first-winter). As it is an adult, the markings on the sides of the breast are not bold enough and too diffuse for Grey-streaked but are typical of adult Dark-sided. Additional clues are the shape of the eye-ring (wider behind the eye), the dark lores (usually pale on Grey-streaked) and the length of the primaries (the wing tip typically falls very close to the tail tip on Grey-streaked).

Regarding the age of this bird, it is in fact more likely to be a first-summer bird (i.e. hatched in 2002) on the basis of the thin pale tip to the inner greater covert and the central tertial. However, the same plumage features apply, and both adult and first-summer birds are very different to the more regularly occuring first-winters that usually occur in HK in autumn.

It would be interesting to see if there are other pictures of this bird, especially showing the undertail coverts, as some Dark-sided show dark bases to the undertail coverts, a feature that I believe is never shown by Grey-streaked.

Title: Re: ??? Flycatcher
Post by Falcon on Sep 15^th, 2003, 7:42pm

Thanks for the correction Paul Leader!! It is a thing that i didn't know about that the eye ring is bigger around the back, I can't see very clearly that the wing is not as long as the tail becuz of the branch.

Title: Re: ??? Flycatcher
Post by KK Hui on Sep 15^th, 2003, 8:43pm

Thanks Paul for your interesting and in-depth analysis! :o

It just goes to show that it's NO easy task to identify particular bird species and its variant without knowledge, experience and a high quality image. This bird was at the perch for less than few seconds ...

Grey-streaked or Dark-sided, it's just a Flycatcher to an inexperienced birder like myself ;) Thanks again for your effort, Falcon and Paul!

KK Hui ARPS
www.geocities.com/kkhui_001