Innholdsfortegnelse for Thrushes, Chats and Flycatchers i Bird ID Photo Guides

Hone your birding identification skills with the Birdwatch and BirdGuides ID Photo Guide series. Written by expert birders, these comprehensive guides are illustrated with high-quality images to demonstrate the variation in plumages shown in birds at all ages and at all seasons, as well as helping you to separate similar species that can be tricky to tell apart while out birding. From common and familiar birds to rarities and even the most extreme of vagrants, this series of seasonal compilations will help you get the best from your birding throughout the year. www.pktmags.com/bid_cyc…

Basic Principles Wayward American passerines tend to provide European birders with a kaleidoscopic splash of colour and are often easier to identify than a monochromatic Old World warbler skulking in an iris bed. But occasionally the Americans like to stick it to us, sending over subtle species that are both humbling and panic inducing from an ID point of view. Empidonax flycatchers – or ‘Empids’ as they are affectionately known – are a group of small, wingbarred flycatchers cloaked in hues of grey, green, brown and buff. Even experienced American birders get tied up in knots trying to identify them, which underscores the uphill task for European observers unfamiliar with the group. Five species breed in eastern North America. Three of these – Acadian, Yellow-bellied and Alder – have been…

Basic Principles The identification of the ‘black-and-white flycatchers’ is one of the most troublesome problems around. Pied Flycatcher is the default species in Britain, but Collared Flycatcher is a viable target, albeit a very rare one. Although typical spring males of these two species are normally (though not always!) straightforward to identify, more serious problems are posed by spring females, first-winter birds, hybrids and the outside chance of even rarer forms. Pied Flycatcher This species breeds widely across central and northern Europe (including Scandinavia) and western Russia and winters in central west Africa. April sees the return of British breeders to western woodlands and Continental birds can appear on eastern coasts. In early autumn, Pied Flycatchers are scarce migrants, though large ‘falls’ of European birds can occur on the east…

Basic Principles With its bold face and underparts patterning and distinctive blood-red flanks and underwing coverts, Redwing is one of our most-loved winter visitors. This delightful thrush has a large continental breeding range extending across the boreal and birch zone from Scandinavia eastwards to the Kolyma River in eastern Siberia. A few pairs also nest annually in Scotland. From this vast area, birds head south and west in autumn to winter throughout central and southern Europe and south-western Asia, some even reaching North Africa. The species is highly nomadic and shows a distinct lack of attachment to any particular wintering area. There is, however, another population of Redwings (comprising between 100,000 and 300,000 pairs) which breeds in splendid isolation on Iceland and the Faeroes and which migrates south-east to winter…

Basic Principles Flycatchers are a delightful component of autumn passerine ‘falls’. Three species – Spotted, Pied and Red-breasted – occur regularly on British coasts, but each also has a much rarer and rather similar counterpart species. Here we’ll look at the identification of our three familiar species and compare them with Asian Brown, Collared and Taiga Flycatchers respectively. Spotted and Asian Brown Flycatchers Spotted Flycatcher breeds from western Europe in the west to southern Siberia and Mongolia in the east, the whole population wintering in sub-Saharan Africa. Although a fast-declining breeding bird in Britain, it can also be found as an autumn migrant from the Continent, particularly on eastern coasts. It is a relatively early autumn migrant, with passage typically peaking in late August and September. This is a large…

Basic Principles Stonechats are perennial favourites – characterful, attractive and often easy to observe, and – even better – there are also rare forms to look out for. However, the world of stonechats seems to be getting more complicated, with recent shifts in both taxonomy and nomenclature, as well as new advances in our understanding of identification characters. We are living in exciting times with this fascinating superspecies of chat, and there is much still to learn. Taxonomy and nomenclature The stonechats have had a somewhat complex taxonomic and nomenclatural history. Until the 1990s there was just ‘Stonechat’ to worry about, a single species comprising our native breeding form hibernans, a few Siberian vagrants of the forms ‘maura’ (from western Siberia) or stejnegeri (a contentious taxon from eastern Siberia), and…

Basic Principles Autumn migration is so often characterised by one family: thrushes. The tseep of Redwings overhead in clear October skies, and hulking Fieldfares chacking as they arrive noisily from a North Sea crossing often harbour highly prized, mouth-watering rarities from the east that are eagerly sought by rarity hunters from Scilly to Shetland. But it is also at this time of year that British and Irish birders may encounter thrushes from North America – namely the elusive, Song Thrush-eseque Catharus thrushes. Subtle in nature, they can offer a bit more of an identification headache than their Old World cousins. Four of the five species have been recorded in Britain and Ireland, while another, similar thrush from another genus, Hylocichla – Wood Thrush – has also been recorded in Britain…

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Basic Principles Bluethroats tick all the right boxes. They are regular enough to be a realistic finding target but rare enough to be genuinely exciting when you do find one, and to increase your odds, you have two chances every year, in spring and autumn. They are usually shy and elusive, but a good view of one, particularly a spring male, is a memorable occasion indeed There are extra layers of interest too, for Bluethroat exhibits not just great age and sex-related plumage variation, but occurs in a variety of subspecies and plumage types across its extensive range. Every Bluethroat is worth the closest study, both to enjoy its sheer beauty and character and also to identify it as precisely as possible. Bluethroat taxonomy is complex, with around 10 subspecies…