'Eastern' Lesser Whitethroat, Flamborough (2 Viewers)

[SaltyDogBirding]

A few images of the Eastern Lesser Whitethroat @FlamboroughBird this morning. Sandy, very pale below, short-winged, pale lores, virtually no mask, missing most of its tail but there's a lot of white in it. Is this halimodendri? Anyone have any views?

 

[KenM]

It’s certainly looks like a good candidate from the East and looking quite pale at that.
The two white outer tail margins might be of interest ie are they adjacent from one side or do they represent T1 and T6, presume it would have to be handled to confirm this?

It seems that any Lesser Whitethroat seen post late September through to October and beyond is more likely to be from the East, at least that’s the impression I’m getting reading between the lines.

Seven years ago on Oct.4th, I had what I initially thought was a Desert Warbler (head was totally obscured by leafage) only for it to pop out the leaves to confirm that it was a “Desert Lesser Whitethroat!

Unfortunately I got lousy shots at the time, slightly out of focus but looking very pale.
I believe the thinking then was any pale “late”LW is likely to be of the race minula, this has now changed to halmodendri?, clearly the classification for this group is an ongoing evolving affair.

FWIW here are some (bad) shots of a presumed blythi LW taken taken on Oct 26th ‘21 in NE London.

Cheers