Tag: Bird ID
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Identification of the ‘Lesser Whitethroat’ species complex
The Lesser Whitethroat complex is, well, complex. Apart from althaea and perhaps the odd margelanica, identification of this group is a nightmare and is the key reason as to why the taxa will be lumped back into one species by the IOC in version 13.2. While large periods of time have separated certain races, phenotypic…
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Mediterranean Shearwater lump: no more Yelkouan and Balearic?
As a kid studying my battered copy of Collins Bird Guide, shearwaters and petrels always confused me. The prospect of a pelagic or even a scope to use for seawatching seemed impossible to me, so my only choice was to read about them and compare plates instead of actually going out and seeking them. A…
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The Lesser Sand Plover split: a review of the supporting literature and identification of the resulting species.
UPDATE: I managed to get iframe embeds to work, so you no longer have to click quite as many links The IOC has recently accepted the proposed split of Lesser Sand Plover (Charadrius mongolus) into Siberian Sand Plover (C. mongolus) and Tibetan Sand Plover (C. atrifrons). Sand Plovers have always been notoriously hard to identify,…