Izumi, Japan December 2022 (1 Viewer)

[rowebird87]

I've identified most of the birds seen in Izumi in the reclamation fields back in December 2022. I'm having trouble with these final two. I'm thinking pale thrush and maybe some type of sparrow?

 

[creedence]

Pale thrush

 

[THE_FERN]

Other one looks like a bunting: perhaps reed bunting?

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Think the bunting looks better for a female Masked Bunting e.g. elongated bill, yellowish tones.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Think the bunting looks better for a female Masked Bunting e.g. elongated bill, yellowish tones.

As in the split from Black-faced?

I noticed this on the IOC just today and was going to ask what's happened to the birds on the British list. Were they assigned to species or are they now just 'sp'?

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

As in the split from Black-faced?

I noticed this on the IOC just today and was going to ask what's happened to the birds on the British list. Were they assigned to species or are they now just 'sp'?

Andy, all the UK records accepted thus far have been assigned as nominate spodocephala and, likely all the WP records which, is hardly surprising. There is no evidence that Masked is anything more than, at best, a very short distance migrant so an extremely unlikely candidate for western vagrancy IMHO.

The situation with the 'Lesser Short-toed' Lark complex split, for example, is entirely different.

Grahame

 

[Andy Adcock]

Cheers Grahame.

 

[Rotherbirder]

But, as we have come to learn in recent years, 'extremely unlikely candidate' is not the same as 'impossibility!'

RB