Agree, and besides its a
tough lived myth that you're able to tell calidus (in ether juvenile or adult plumage) from peregrinus.
The considerable variation of peregrinus with its clinal tendency to larger and paler individuals towards the northeast in its distribution renders any attempt to stick the calidus label to ANY* Peregrine quite futile.
Just my penny, but
Dick Forsman shares my view and doesn't quote the flights of fancy some birders have indulged in when they have claimed that juvenile calidus have an - in the field noticeable longer tail - than that of the nominateo
*The only difference between my view and Dick's is that he strangely enough seems to hold this view: "Of these two subspecies
only the most typical individuals should be identified...." whereafter he continues by eracidating his own conclusion (that
some individuals may be separated in the field) by telling us why my view (that even the most "typical" calidus could easily belong to ssp peregrinus) is a proven fact.
Maybe he's aware of the
die-hard myth among many birders (that the two subspecies
can be
told apart in the field) and feels that this misperception is in a sense
too holy to simply liquidate, so he waters down his own conclusions with a soft spoken generality?
A subject for a conversation the next time I meet him?
I quote from his new book:
"Nominate
peregrinus breeds over most of Europe and the temperate zone of Asia, with northern populations being migratory, wintering as far south as the Mediterranean basin and Africa. The long-winged arctic ssp.
calidus from the Russian tundra east of the White Sea is a long-distance migrant to temperate and tropical parts of Asia and Africa, even reaching S.Africa, passing through Europe on migration. Of these two subspecies only the most typical individuals should be identified, as
peregrinus and
calidus seem to integrate over a wide area. For instance, some birds from Taimur, which should be
calidus on breeding range, may look like
peregrinus, while many Finnish breeding birds (ssp.
peregrinus by definition) approach the phenotype of
calidus. Ssp.
calidus may in fact represent the extreme in a cline, in which Peregrines gradually get paler and less heavily marked from C Europe towards the north-east."
No offense to you Tom, but I've just heard the cliche "a typical calidus" too often to allow myself to surrender to this....let's call it......mythB
Peter