Capped Wheatear juvenile Namibia 7th June 22 (1 Viewer)

[Andy Hurley]

Is this a juvenile Capped Wheatear, Namibia 7/6/22 near the Hardap Dam?

Thanks for your help

 

[Andy Adcock]

Familiar Chat?

 

[Andy Hurley]

I think the tail is wrong for Familiar Chat, Andy. I have just realised there are better photos of the tail of what I think is the same bird.

 

[Butty]

All these are heavily underexposed (no offence), by 1-2 stops - hence impossible to do anything useful with them. I don't see anything that could particularly suggest juvenile capped wheatear (eg supercilium, underpart pattern). It would help ID a lot if you brightened them all substantially, or jiggled levels etc, and resubmitted 👍🏻

 

[Andy Hurley]

None taken. I give it a go

 

[Andy Hurley]

The originals were all into the sun. Try these:

 

[Brian J Small]

with work these are Karoo Chat. Any warm hues are likely colour reflecting off ground.

Brian

 

[MacNara]

I've adjusted a couple of your photos, Andy, and I think it looks fine for Familiar Chat (anyway not Capped Wheatear).



If your reason for saying that 'the tail is wrong' is because you are looking at Sasol, then you need to be aware that the Sasol tail pictures for the chats are the undertail not the part of the tail we can see in your photos.

Also: why is it that your photo attachments come out as generic icons when almost everyone else can make them come out as photos? (Below 1)

Even the square photo links (Below 2) are a mistake, as I have explained so many times on this forum that I've given up.

The forum has set up a nice system where you can post thumbnails, so people can judge whether it's worth opening or not, yet almost all members seem unable to use this simple system. (Below 3 is an example of the thumbnail system used properly.)

But usually a thread with these generic icons I ignore completely.

 

[MacNara]

with work these are Karoo Chat. Any warm hues are likely colour reflecting off ground.

Brian

Hi Brian. I am loathe to challenge you in any way, as you have helped me often on BF, and I am still enjoying your new East Africa book.

However ... I have never seen Karoo Chat, but Sasol (and Internet photos) makes it look like a basically black and white bird. By chance we both 'improved' the same view of Andy's bird (posting overlap). Are you saying that the reddish colouration on the wing (A) and the reddish eyering and lores (C) are just reflected colouring? They look natural to me, and I don't see how the eyering would have been picked out so neatly by the localised lighting. And why would the light stop neatly without touching the wing feather edges (B)?

I know you are going to be correct, but if you have time, an explanation would be great, as I would never have considered Karoo chat from looking at Sasol. Is there more colour variation in this species than Sasol (I only have v3) shows?

 

[Brian J Small]

Hi Mac

Challenge away

I would think that Familiar Chat would show rusty rump, uppertail coverts and tail edges? Attached another manipulated image of the OP bird, I can't see any rufous...

Here is an adult Karoo Chat from Namibia - ML346426281 Karoo Chat Macaulay Library this lacks the warmer hues on secondary/covert edges, but younger birds can show them



Brian

 

[Andy Hurley]

Thanks MacNara and Brian for you efforts.
MacNara, I have had a stroke and I forget how to do a lot of things before I've even finished reading up how to do them, so please forgive me.
I don't see a strong white borders on the outer retrices which ruled out the Karoo Chat photos in the Sasol 5 app, albeit these are adult birds, whereas I don't think mine is. I agree that ML346426281 Karoo Chat Macaulay Library only shows narrow edges and is almost the same in every way except the rufousness. Could it be two birds I photographed? Looking at the Sasol 5 app, the Capped Wheatear juv photos from Peter Ryan and Warwick Tarboton also look very close to the one(s) I photographed in the Kalahari, including the slight supercilium although the view of the flight feathers are somewhat limited in the app.
MacNara, the Karoo Chat from Namibia is mainly light brown above and off white below. The white edges to the visible wing feathers match well. I wrote in my notebook that this bird was warm brown/rufous below. Brian says that juveniles can show rufous edges to secondary coverts, which match with this bird. I'm happy with that.

Thank you both once again for taking your time to help with the id.

 

[MacNara]

Hi Mac

Challenge away

I would think that Familiar Chat would show rusty rump, uppertail coverts and tail edges? Attached another manipulated image of the OP bird, I can't see any rufous...

Here is an adult Karoo Chat from Namibia - ML346426281 Karoo Chat Macaulay Library this lacks the warmer hues on secondary/covert edges, but younger birds can show them

Brian

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. With the link to the Macauley image, I can see what you mean. The OP's bird nontheless seems to be as rufous as this bird can be (i.e. the areas that are slightly off-white in the Macauley's image are orange in the OP's bird, at least on my screen). I would never have got this ID from Sasol 3, which seems to lack both the black secondaries and the wing panel (off-white or pale grey in your Macauley's photo, but orange in the OP's photo). It seems to me that Sasol would benefit from a view where the bird was more twisted and the rear was also visible, rather than the straight side-on view which is shown; but I think that some of these feature should have been visible in the Sasol anyway, but are not.

 

[Butty]

I agree with Brian that all the warm buff tones ('reddish' and 'orange' are certainly too strong as a description) are very plausibly due to light reflected from the ground. Note that they are all on shaded parts of the body more likely to receive such reflection, whereas sunlit or upward-angled areas do not show this effect.

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Happy to go with the consensus, but I'm struggling to exclude Chat Flycatcher. How is that achieved here? 🤔

 

[Andy Hurley]

Happy to go with the consensus, but I'm struggling to exclude Chat Flycatcher. How is that achieved here? 🤔

Lack of bristles at base of beak?

 

[Brian J Small]

Happy to go with the consensus, but I'm struggling to exclude Chat Flycatcher. How is that achieved here? 🤔

Bill length and lack pale area at base of primaries, etc...

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Bill length and lack pale area at base of primaries, etc...

Thanks Brian 👍