Mystery bunting - Turkey (1 Viewer)

Out of curiosity mainly I've taken a look at Yellowhammer measurements in BWP - the difference in wing to tail ratio between the races. The differences are tiny (c1%) The larger birds in each pair are the males

Bryon Wright said:

Hi Murat,
so this is a hybrid?

Click to expand...

Hi Bryon,

Some taxonomists consider the pine bunting and Yellowhammer as same species. In that case Emberiza leucocephalos fronto (Stresemann, 1930) and Emberiza leucocephalos leucocephalos (S. G. Gmelin, 1771) are two subspecies of the pine bunting. In Urals and Western Sibiria these two species breed together next to one an other. But hybridisation is very limited. In these hybrids, the white parts are sooty yellow. So, in our case, it is quite a low possibility. But the yellowhammer's pale morphs are not considered here yet. One indication that does not support hybridisation between pine bunting and yellowhammer, is the light areas on the crown of the bird. As far as I know this can only be in the case of hybridisation of yellowhammer and cirl bunting, but in that case there would be many criteria exposed which does not fit to this bird.

I am a bit experienced about the crown feather genetic behaviour of these chickens which are comparable with passerine crown genetics: polish, barbu watermael, kosova longcrowler, appenzeller spitzhauben, sultan, brabanter, brabançonne etc. All behaves different genetically, but all comes from a mutation in Tirol mountains in middle ages.

I think before IDing the bird, we have to look at subspecies-superspecies descriptions and ranges.

Murat F. Özçelik

https://vimeo.com/channels/murat

Jane Turner said:

Out of curiosity mainly I've taken a look at Yellowhammer measurements in BWP - the difference in wing to tail ratio between the races. The differences are tiny (c1%) The larger birds in each pair are the males

Click to expand...

Thanks MS Turner. I know that data. The Roselaar 95 seems to be newer study. In that, the wing length of erythrogenys males shown as 92.6 mm, while the citrinella 88.3mm. And for females 87.7 vs. 83.6 which is perfectlu fit the %1 ratio. But do you think the wing/tail ratio fits this persantage. I see on my image (also on the METU image) circa 1/1.5, while on the european bird circa 1/1. Do you think this is an illusion of the image detoriation or what do you think?

Murat F. Özçelik

https://vimeo.com/channels/murat

After more than 100 posts people seem to have lost interest with this bird. Pity, but understandable as it's hard to catch up with all that has been written...

The seemingly rather short tail is a feature also I was going to mention. I guess for a "normal" YH/PB it would be too short. But I've no experience with YH ssp. erythrogenys and only rely on photos for comparison. Then, of course, you may have the problem with the angle the photo was taken from. As for the mystery-bunting it was photographed directly from lateral, so the short tail should be real. But can you be sure? Photos can even be more misleading when it comes to relative-to-each-other-proportions. In my experience you can never be 100% sure if the bird really is in the pose you assume. Moreover it can be stretched or contracted. In my opinion measurements should only be take on museums-specimens or living birds in hands and not from pictures. E.g. the video-grab images Murat uploaded earlier (post #67) show bird 1 that seems quite short-tailed whereas 3+4 (assumingly the same individual) seem very long-tailed (bird 2 should be excluded due to the angle). Are they different YH ssp.? I really don't know.

I'm uncertain witch bunting sp. (or ssp.) we have here! But I couldn't believe that Corn Bunting is the most probable guess for most! I really tried to find pictures/videos with CBs showing a narrow, lighter coloured crown- or at least nape-stipe. I didn't succeed! So at least CB can be excluded!

Eventually I must say I learnt a lot, but as suggested before, possibly the bird should better fly off undetermined. Sorry I'm out here...