mystery bird?

[exeter_uk]

Probably very easy, i've never managed to come up with one that challenges you guys.

[Pat Stokes]

Common Whitethroat?

[exeter_uk]

Nope - Not a whitethroat. (:laugh: wasn't guessed first time, wahey!)

[michael23]

Proper bugging me now! :hmpf: I keep looking and I just cant put anything to it, Im going to keep thinking.........:smile:


Nope - Not a whitethroat. (:laugh: wasn't guessed first time, wahey!)

[Colin Key]

Cetti's Warbler?

Colin

[Red-eyed Video]

Linnet?


Edit; I've had another look and it doesn't have the forked tail of a Linnet, my first guess was Whitethroat too which I think it is.

[MichaelF]

Whitethroat for me too

[PeterD]

I have to disagree, the underside tail feathers are too dark and the legs are the wrong colour for a Whitethroat.

[Pat Stokes]

Perhaps it is a Lesser Whitethroat?

[PeterD]

Perhaps it is a Lesser Whitethroat?
The Lesser Whitethroat's legs are even darker than the Whitethroat

[KenM]

Probably very easy, i've never managed to come up with one that challenges you guys.

Imm.Dartford Warbler?

[Pat Stokes]

It's a Passerine:laugh:

[Steve Keen]

Peter D, I can't see the underside, the presence of tertials suggests upperside? Broadly rufous-edged ones at that. A la Whitethroat. Adult male judging by head pattern. Certainly can't find any legs.

Whitethroat

Steve

[PeterD]

Peter D, I can't see the underside, the presence of tertials suggests upperside? Broadly rufous-edged ones at that. A la Whitethroat. Adult male judging by head pattern. Certainly can't find any legs.

Whitethroat

Steve

Firstly I would like to apologise. I thought the bird underside was visible with the legs which turn out to be twigs on closer examination.:cry: I should have studied the image more before posting.
That aside, the plumage colour is too uniform IMHO for a Whitethroat see http://peterd-2009.smugmug.com/gallery/8757587_KmPFM/1/#580149453_NsPco-A-LB which is the closest I have got to the back of a Whitethroat.

[Peter Martin Phillips]

I was thinking Lesser throat but it looks a bit bigger and bulkier and theres no colour contrast between the head and back. No rufous in the terts would rule out Whitethroat. I think it looks 'sylvia' so given the complete lack of features and its sturdy look and bill I am going for Garden Warbler

[Ben Miller]

It's a Common Whitethroat, as said right at the start.

[Pat Stokes]

Yes I agree. Common Whitethroat:SLEEP:

[Peter Martin Phillips]

Probably very easy, i've never managed to come up with one that challenges you guys.

Maybe you could post another pic or tell us?

Dont fall asleep just yet Pat you might miss something............:err:

[Colin Key]

Female Spectacled Warbler ? (must admit that I had the bird "wrong way up" on first viewing :ohdear:).

Colin

[PeterD]

Female Spectacled Warbler ? (must admit that I had the bird "wrong way up" on first viewing :ohdear:).

Colin

Join the clan Colin. I did exactly the same :cry:.

[exeter_uk]

no one has guessed right yet, sorry guys!

some of you lots certainty about this bird being a whitethoat is making me doubt my I.D, however i am still fairly certain i am right. This bird was with a bunch of others of the same species (which i am 100% sure about) , both male and female (possibly a clue there) making the same short call (another clue?) on hindhead heath in surrey. I dont have another pic, i can tell you if you want, or keep guessing. It would be pretty embarrising if i was wrong!

Thanks, James :laugh:

[Peter Martin Phillips]

no one has guessed right yet, sorry guys!

some of you lots certainty about this bird being a whitethoat is making me doubt my I.D, however i am still fairly certain i am right. This bird was with a bunch of others of the same species (which i am 100% sure about) , both male and female (possibly a clue there) making the same short call (another clue?) on hindhead heath in surrey. I dont have another pic, i can tell you if you want, or keep guessing. It would be pretty embarrising if i was wrong!

Thanks, James :laugh:

You can save your embarrassment till later. Can you blow up the picture a bit....am not sure now..I think I can see some fringing to the terts on this computer and possible some white round the eye??? I am leaning towards Whitethroat..it certainly looks 'sylvia'

[exeter_uk]

Here is a closer crop of the image.

I have found another image, but i will refrain from posting it for the moment for a number of reasons, firstly it might make it a bit too easy, secondly im not certain it is the same bird (as i said there were a number of this species within a few meters of each other), so if i am wrong about the i.d of the original one (which i still dont think i am) it will be of no help, other then to show up my i.d skills!

James

[Pat Stokes]

Could we really be looking at a Dartford Warbler?.

[PeterD]

Here is a closer crop of the image.

I have found another image, but i will refrain from posting it for the moment for a number of reasons, firstly it might make it a bit too easy, secondly im not certain it is the same bird (as i said there were a number of this species within a few meters of each other), so if i am wrong about the i.d of the original one (which i still dont think i am) it will be of no help, other then to show up my i.d skills!

James

Here is my guess - Wheatear. See
http://peterd-2009.smugmug.com/gallery/8756309_rksW9/1/#587422541_4m3k3-A-LB
The plumage colour and basic pattern is very similar.

[exeter_uk]

Not a Dartford Warbler or a Wheatear i am afraid...

[Pat Stokes]

Female Blackcap:puzzled:

[exeter_uk]

Not a female blackcap either, sorry!

[Colin Key]

Come on Jim lad, enough is enough - let us see the other shot of this bird.

Colin :puzzled:

P.S. I am now with Common Whitethroat, and you might have to go into hiding for a while :laugh:.

[exeter_uk]

Im just going to go ahead and say what i think it is, as i don't think the other shot is of the same bird. I'm getting ready to go into hiding :laugh: . I I.D'd it as a female Stonechat...

[Colin Key]

Im just going to go ahead and say what i think it is, as i don't think the other shot is of the same bird. I'm getting ready to go into hiding :laugh: . I I.D'd it as a female Stonechat...

There is a bunker once used by Saddam Hussein available for rent!! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

Colin

[exeter_uk]

Ha ha okay i take it i was a way off then. here is the image, but cropped to show another bird which has to be a Stonechat no? I had, apparently foolishly, assumed they were the same. Oops. Oh well, we learn from our mistakes.

[Pat Stokes]

Tin hat and Bunker comes to mind. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! boom!!!

Well done it was a bugger of a bird guess.

next please?:laugh:

[exeter_uk]

Well as i am in hiding now i wont start a new thread for this one, I think i know what it is, but to save from losing face again :laugh: i wont say. :laugh:. This was photographed by a family member earlier today.

Cheers.

P.S. sorry for wasting everyone's time with my miss i.d'd mystery bird, i take it's a whitethroat then :beer:

[Pat Stokes]

1st win Pied Flycatcher

[Colin Key]

1st win Pied Flycatcher

+1 with Pat.

Colin

[Pat Stokes]

Thanks Colin, I think he is making it easier as his id is a bit stringy :laugh:

[MichaelF]

P.S. sorry for wasting everyone's time with my miss i.d'd mystery bird, i take it's a whitethroat then :beer:
Yep, Whitethroat on the left, juv Stonechat on the right. Mixed feeding flocks of small birds are a very common sight! Stonechats with Sylvia warblers is a particularly common association. The Whitethroat benefits from the greater predator-alertness of the Stonechat, and the Stonechat benefits from insects disturbed by the Whitethroat.

[Peter Martin Phillips]

Well as i am in hiding now i wont start a new thread for this one, I think i know what it is, but to save from losing face again :laugh: i wont say. :laugh:. This was photographed by a family member earlier today.

Cheers.

P.S. sorry for wasting everyone's time with my miss i.d'd mystery bird, i take it's a whitethroat then :beer:

I hope it a deep deep bunker............:laugh: One swallow does not make a spring.... One stoner does not make a whitethroat either....:elvis: Its good to see 'crazy eye' is alive and well and living in the UK:err:...its going to be a long autumn. You can go back to sleep now Pat:SLEEP:

[Cachinnans]

Hi Exeter UK. Just to clarify, your original photo showed a Common Whitethroat on the left together with an adult female Stonechat on the right and your second image, with a pale bird infront of a dark tree trunk, depicts a juvenile Stonechat, not a Pied Fly.

[Danacobius]

can't seem to manipulate the picture at all ~ I'm going left field a bit and going purely on colour and say Reed Warbler even though habitat looks wrong.

[nickderry]

the latest pic is also a stonechat.

[Pat Stokes]

Aha it's a hybrid a Stonecatcher. Its "Flint" feathers and "Pebble dashed" primaries shows this.:laugh:

[exeter_uk]

hey everyone, thanks for all your comments on my latest image. My first thought would have been stonechat too (i can admit this now some others have said it too :laugh: ) but the pattern on the wings didn't match to any picture of stonechat i could find.

Danacobius, the image was taken on Thursley common, so although the habitat looks like woodland in this photo, there would have been reed beds close by.

[Colin Key]

Hi Exeter UK. Just to clarify, your original photo showed a Common Whitethroat on the left together with an adult female Stonechat on the right and your second image, with a pale bird infront of a dark tree trunk, depicts a juvenile Stonechat, not a Pied Fly.

Could you please explain why the bird depicted in post #34 is a juvenile Stonechat.

I have looked at a large number of Stonechats this morning, including many juveniles (they are one of our commonest resident passerines here and most successful breeders) and none of them look remotely like James' bird; the juveniles are drab, brown, heavily-streaked birds with, at best, a vague glimmer of a pale (not white) wing bar.

I cannot see any trick of lighting or photographic aberration turning what I have seen at very close quarters into the bird depicted in the photo.

Colin :err:

[Cachinnans]

Yes, of course. Juvenile Stonechats are very variable: from warm, brown and streaky to pale, dappled and spankley. The dumpy shape, posture and proportions (tail length, bill size etc) all fit Stonechat. The resolution on this over exposed photo, however, is pretty poor and any mantle and breast markings have been 'flared out' although some faint breast streaking is just discernible. Focusing on what is discernible on the wing gives all the clues. The obvious white area are the inner greater coverts (white in Stonechat but often covered by scapulars). The rest of the greater coverts are dark with warm fringes as are the secondaries. It is even possible to make out the pale tipped primary coverts contrasting with the darker primaries. There is really only one dumpy, short tailed passerine with white inner greater coverts: Stonechat. If you mirror th image here http://www.pbase.com/peregrine/image/79684849 in photoshop and lighten it a bit, it's quite a good match. Cheers.