Whinchats: sex and age please, UK. (1 Viewer)

There are two birds in Number C. The repeated sequence of three photos on the right shows one bird above the other. On the left are two photos but I don't know which bird they belong to. I.e. they might be of the top bird, the bottom bird or both.

Joe,

Not possible from these images!

Ageing requires 1) looking at the colour of the inside of the upper mandible and/or 2) close inspection of the GC & MC; first-years show a moult limit within GC and/or MC etc

Once you have aged the bird you can then attempt to sex it. You would need to examine the amount/pattern of white in the TF and MC/GC.

A small % of first-years are intermediate and therefore not safely sexed.

A useful reference here. Scroll down for autumn birds.

http://aulaenred.ibercaja.es/wp-content/uploads/333_WhinchatSrubetra.pdf


Grahame

Nice one, thanks Grahame :t:

I was hoping to throw some light on what was passing by- but obviously it's not that straight forward (I'm not going to get a ladder and climb up the electric wires for closer inspection of the GC & MC).

It's a learning curve- thanks again for your reply.