Chat / Redstart ID please. Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India (1 Viewer)

[Jaysan]

Need some help ID this bird which I saw on 8th Jan 24. It sat like a chat, but I am not sure what it is. The area it was in was a scrub patch next to a lake (Achankulam lake). Thanks for your help.
Jaysan

p.s. Just to add, there was a male pied bushchat near by. Could this be a female?

 

[Butty]

Yes, or immature.

 

[Jaysan]

Thank you. The image in the helm field guide seems to have a pale area in the abdomen which threw me off...

 

[Butty]

I thought from memory that yours was fairly typical - but, thumbing through Macaulay now, I see that the underparts are often paler and that the rufous on (belly and vent and) undertail-coverts can be zero (as the Grimmett guide in fact shows).

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

Need some help ID this bird which I saw on 8th Jan 24. It sat like a chat, but I am not sure what it is. The area it was in was a scrub patch next to a lake (Achankulam lake). Thanks for your help.
Jaysan

p.s. Just to add, there was a male pied bushchat near by. Could this be a female?

Jaysan, your bird is a female Pied Stonechat of indeterminable age; one would need to identify moult limits + look at specific feather tracts to quantify wear to enable precise ageing. One can readily age juveniles as they resemble adult of respective sex e.g males have blacker wings and tail, some already have traces of white wing patch. Juvenile male ML576242461 - Pied Bushchat - Macaulay Library in any case, sex even more obvious with onset of post juvenile moult see
ML234900221 - Pied Bushchat - Macaulay Library

Females are more variable than males but there is also racial variation to consider.

Grahame