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White Wagtail, Taiwan (1 Viewer)

modrawnu

Active member
This white wagtail is photographed in Taiwan today. Is his eye-striped pattern and black area of chin O.K. for a lugens? How about the possibility of a hybrid (leucopsis x ocularis)?

Thanks for any comment.


Location: Taichung City, Taiwan
Date: 12th March, 2017
 

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IMO a good lugens based on the first image. The second image appears to show slightly more black on the LHS of the chin but this many be an illusion. There is nothing else to suggest a hybrid.

Grahame
 
Hi, Grahame

Thanks for your comment. Actually, rather than the chin, I concerned more about the thin and uniform eye-stripe pattern. Unlike other lugens I've seen before, which has border and less uniformly eye-stripe (especially at rear), this one really seemed odd to me. The following pictures are my previous lugens records. So, is the eye-stripe pattern not a good and stable criteria to differentiate the ocularis from lugens ?

Ting-Wei
 

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Hi, Grahame

Thanks for your comment. Actually, rather than the chin, I concerned more about the thin and uniform eye-stripe pattern. Unlike other lugens I've seen before, which has border and less uniformly eye-stripe (especially at rear), this one really seemed odd to me. The following pictures are my previous lugens records. So, is the eye-stripe pattern not a good and stable criteria to differentiate the ocularis from lugens ?

Ting-Wei

Agree the eyestripe is rather thin for lugens, paricularly behind the eye. Looking at images, though there is some variation, I have failed to find an exact match.

However, I can't see it as a leucopsis x ocularis intergrade based on this feature alone. Wouldn't the mantle show a mix of black and grey feathers?

Grahame
 
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An interesting bird. I agree that the shape of the eyestripe does not fit the usual pattern for lugens, particularly the fact that it does not broaden behind the eye. This shape does look closer to my expectations for ocularis.

Despite that, as Grahame says, there seems to be no other features to suggest a hybrid. The black mantle and the extent of white in the wings is much greater than I would expect to see in ocularis. I've never knowlingly seen any pictures of hybrid ocularis x lugens but I would expect more mixed features. I guess it may be possible that it is a second-generation hybrid back-crossed with lugens, but I wonder if it may simply be an extreme pattern in lugens.

I tend to rely quite a lot on the head pattern to separate these two subspecies, and I usually consider it to be a useful feature in female and first-winter birds that are similar in mantle colour and wing pattern. Perhaps there is more variation than I realised - in which case ID just became a lot harder again!
 
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