If ever you needed a reason as to why women shouldn't be allowed to ring...

Just to show it wasn't there, perhaps?

Masked Strike is proving popular with all the birding greats.

Twitchaz With Attitude
New album out now.

Exclusive images of the Norfolk/Suffolk eagle sp.

A very special cargo arrives at Shetland International airport direct from the USA, fully winged and ready for release.

Redpoll identification
Pt. III - rostrata "Greenland" Redpoll

The timely arrival - and departure - of that redpoll in southern England provides the ideal opportunity to drag up part three in this groundbreaking series. We know some young punks have already tried to rip it off, although if something's worth saying once it's worth saying a thousand times.


Very large and bulky with heavily feathered legs. Dark brown overall - heavily dark brown streaking almost entirely covers the a white base colour.


Long winged in flight. Rump almost completely streaked dark brown.


Heavy dark streaking on the flanks. Again, note the bulky appearance.


Round four in 'world's strongest man' competition, the rostrata lift.

The English bird:


Bub Chumpman helpfully pointed out why the bird above is rostrata -
"It's big. It's like Chaffinch size.... well, maybe not that big. It's so much bigger than the other redpolls though. A bit bigger, I mean. Just a bit.
"It always feeds on the feeders" (presumably always, except on those occasions we saw it on the ground) "and it always droops its wings when it's feeding." (presumably, Bub, since it has a damaged wing) "All [of] the pictures of Greater Redpoll I've seen from America all droop their wings when they feed on feeders."
Sven Larsson said on the matter - "Initially, with p3 being as long as it is, and p2 falling roughly equal with p5, I thought this was a clear cut Brown Shrike. However, on closer examination it appears to be a redpoll. What did you say you wanted it to be again? A Greenland bird? Oh yeah, yeah, it's definitely a Greenland Redpoll."
It is our opinion that this bird should not be on anyone's lists. Unless you need Mealy Redpoll for the year.

***MEGA*** Norfolk 1w male EYEBROWED THRUSH 2.75 miles NW/of Holt near Glandford at Natural Surroundings NR. Will be found 'injured' on 18th March & released later in a/noon. Access thru shop - £3 per person. Strictly no access without payment.

American Herring Gull on Merseyside – it’s the solid dark tail band that clinches it!

All the news you don't really want from the team who'll give you it anyway

Confusion species. The bane of every keen birder's life. Here's some more to add to the list.


Red-necked & Pied-billed Grebe


Slavonian Grebe & Ancient Murrelet


Herring Gull & generic rare gull

Britain The WP's lamest birding destination.

The WP's hottest new birding destination.

Warsaw market, 3rd January 2009

“Did you call me an Inornate Warbler or a seven-striped-sprite?” said the Cheshire Chiffchaff.
“I said Inornate Warbler,” replied DIM Walice, “and I wish you wouldn’t keep flitting around and disappearing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy”.
“All right” said the Chiffchaff, and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the tip of its tail and ending with the bill, which remained there sometime after the rest of it had gone.

Redpoll identification
Pt. II - flammea "Mealy" Redpoll


Distinct white tramlines down mantle & clean white wingbars.


Moderately streaked white under tail coverts.


Long-billed (cf. "Arctic" redpolls), especially so in form 'holboellii'.

Redpoll identification
Pt. I - cabaret "Lesser" Redpoll


Predominantly warm brown overall with only slight pale tramlines running down the mantle. Flanks streaked on a brown-buff base colour.


Small.


Males sexed by bright red breast. Red on forehead allows separation from Linnet and female House Sparrow.


Heavily streaked buff under tail coverts; central streak <4.6 mm wide.

Identification of an out-of-range Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus (KEV & Perry, 2008)

Fig. 1: ad male Brown Shrike on St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly, UK in October

Key features for the identification include

- dark & well defined mask (Fig. 1, a)

- short pale outer tail feathers visible as two white areas at the base of the underside of the tail (Fig. 1, b)

- short primary projection, with the visible tip to the wing barely reaching the rump (Fig. 1, c)

- it was on the isles of scilly

- it was on the isle of scilly in october

Species limits in the genus Branta, the black geese

Abstract As part of our overhaul of birding, we felt the need to access some tricky taxonomic issues that only us and the Dutch dare touch. First up are the black geese, Branta spp. Using a combination of mtDNA sequencing, nucleic DNA barcoding, phylogenetic mapping and a copy of Modern Genetics (Ayala & Kiger, 1980) to explain it all, plus extensive phenotypic studies and field observations of breeding & social behaviour plus vocalisation, we find that many of the conventional species of Branta geese are better treated as several separate species. Most surprisingly, we find that the Red-breasted Goose Branta ruficollis shows very little relation to the Branta genus. We propose that Red-breasted Goose be moved to become Sciurus ruficollis.

Traditionally the genus Branta has been split into five clades: Brent Goose Branta [bernicla], Barnacle Goose Br. leucopsis, Canada Goose Br. [canadensis], Red-breasted Goose Br. ruficollis and Hawaiian Goose Br. sandvicensis. As Hawaiian Goose is an unlikely vagrant to the Western Palearctic and has not, as yet, established naturalised breeding populations in the region, it was completely ignored in our study. Our study also largely skimmed over Barnacle Goose given that, despite its three distinct and separate breeding populations, it was clearly monotypic and gave limited scope for any armchair ticks.
The Canada Goose complex saw us going through a whole 4 packs of ANADIN EXTRA™. Various previous studies have shown the clade to consist of anywhere between seven and 3,460 distinct forms. Our study found the group to consist of five lineages. We propose that these lineages be elivated in status to become distinct species.

[Common] Canada Goose Br. canadensis (polytypic with Br. c. candensis, Br. c. maxima, Br. c. moffitti & Br. c. interior)

Lesser [Canada] Goose Br. hutchinsii (monotypic - the study considers previously recognised parvipes and 'taverneri' to be clines of hutchinsii.)

Midget [Canada] Goose Br. minima (polytypic with Br. m. minima and that other one with the white on its breast.)

Dusky [Canada] Goose Br. occidentalis (monotypic we think, probably, with no difference found between this and 'fulva'. We didn't look too hard though as this one is hardly likely to make it onto you WestPal list!)

White-cheeked [Canada] Goose Br. leucogenys (monotypic - previously included in the genus Pycnonotus. We found significant morphological traits to suggest that this distinct species be better places in the Branta genus.) See also Fig. 1.


Fig. 1 White-cheeked [Canada] Goose Branta leucogenys, adult - a potential vagrant to the Western Palearctic breeding well within the range of established vagrants such as Hume's Short-toed Lark Calandrella acutirostris, Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii and Red Avadavat Amandava amandava. Note the rather distinct dark line bisecting the restricted white cheeks; the pale breast concolorous with the flanks; the rather warm brown back and the comparatively long tail.

The bernicla group showed distinct differences between the 3 main groups. Differences in mtDNA were 'significant', vocalisation was 'subtly distinct' and, working closely with native Greenland Inuit hunters, we found that taste also differed between the 3 forms. It was also discovered that few things hurt as much as accidently biting into a WWT radio transmitter while tucking into a SuperGoose stew. With the differences noted above, as well as differences in behaviour on wintering grounds that, to be frank, we can't be arsed to write about, we propose the bernicla group be split into 3 monotypic species:

Dark-bellied Brent Goose Br. bernicla

Irish Goose Br. hrota

Brant Brent Goose Br. nigricans

We could not find Melville Island on a map and consequently were unable to study the proposed Grey-bellied Brent Br. [b.] 'intermidius' type said to breed in the area. Limited results from searching Google Images led us to believe that 'intermidius' is in fact a hybrid swarm between Br. hrota and Br. nigricans and is as such untickable and not worth the price of the plane ticket.

The most shocking result of our research was the discovery that Red-breasted Goose, previously considered to be in the Branta genus, may in fact be more closely related to the squirrels Sciuridae. We found there to be several morphological differences that placed Red-breasted Goose closer to the squirrels than it did to the black geese: the short, thick neck; the sharp claws; its tendency to climb trees to escape danger*. Final proof came with the observation of inter-specific breeding: mating between Red-breasted Geese and other Branta geese was extremely limited; mating between Red-breasted Geese and squirrels was, however, quite common and often produced viable offspring. We therefore propose Red-breasted Goose be moved from Branta to Sciurus to become Sciurus ruficollis.

*Choice of habitat - treeless grassland - dictates that this behavoir is not often observed in wild populations. We found through our studies that indivuals translocated to densly wooded areas would, however, show this behaviour when trees were available and when danger threatened.

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Volume 1, number 1 - 2008

Identification of Caspian Gull

Wintering Blackcaps in The Netherlands

Possible hybrid Inornate x Yellow-browed Warbler in Sweden

Masters of Misidentification

WP reports

Recente meldingen / recent reports
- in association with waannaminga.nl

Not all that long ago at an undisclosed location with no general access far, far away...