vittata Pied Wheatear?

[Brian S]

Have just spent an enjoyable few minutes going through Rashed's images from Kuwait and came across this labelled as an Eastern Black-eared Wheatear http://www.flickr.com/photos/rashed11112/4368890044/, I wondered if it was in fact a 2cy vittata Pied?

Brian S

[Yoav]

I can only agree with Brian. I have never seen such a dark-mantled Eastern Black-eared, and in Israel we get them as dark as possible. So unless this is a hybrid, this must be a vittata. I wish we had images of the breast and rump, but in the meanwhile it looks OK to me.

[JanJ]

Here´s one from Oct.

http://justinendanitsja.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-10-01T00%3A00%3A00-07%3A00&updated-max=2008-11-01T00%3A00%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=1

JanJ

[ML-S]

A spitting image, I'd say!

[Howard King]

Interesting bird - but would not like to stick my neck out on ID based on a single picture - however to add weight to the current thoughts 18th Feb is a bit early for a Blackeared but fine for Pieds