Hippolais - France, near Paris (1 Viewer)

[Tib78]

Photos taken by a friend of mine.
Clearly this is between Icterine and Melodious. Melodious is very common around Paris while Icterine is a major local rarity (but already one record of a singing male this spring).

The bird was suspected to be an Icterine in the field and seemingly reacted to the playback of Icterine. I don't know whether my friend tried to playback Melodious warber. My friend could never be abolutely sure of the ID, and actually left the bird as a probable Melodious.

The majority of opinions is in favour of Icterine, for obvious reasons. Yet, it seems difficult to back up the ID with wing formula features (such as length of P1, exact length of the PP, primary tips spacing).

And there are a couple of details that worry me a bit. So I am posting it here to see if we can reach a confident conclusion.

 

[Brian J Small]

Melodious for me. Primaries too short (don't reach level with undertail coverts tip; emarginations - I think (hard to see accurately) that there are three clear emarginations. Plus general feel is Melodious.

brian S

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

Melodious for me. Primaries too short (don't reach level with undertail coverts tip; emarginations - I think (hard to see accurately) that there are three clear emarginations. Plus general feel is Melodious.

brian S

Another vote for Melodious. Primaries too short, looked at another way, they fall well short of the tail tip. And I would expect the tertials in particular to show neater yellowish-white fringes in Icterine at this time; they show some signs of wear.

 

[JANJ]

One can only agree with Brian & Grahame.

JanJ

 

[Tib78]

Thanks all.

Melodious was also my initial reaction, but after receiving so many comments from others local recorders favouring Icterine I had started to back down a bit. Yet when I looked at the pictures again 2 days ago I could not find anything conclusively pointing towards Icterine. Hence my post here.

 

[smiths]

Hi Tib,
if there are any local people who are still not convinced, you could point out the position of the emargination on the third primary (counting inwards). This is a strong feature and can reliably be judged in the photographs, while other features such as primary projection are less easily visible in this case.
In Icterine Warbler, the emargination of P3 falls approximately level with the tip of the longest tertial.
Melodious Warbler, on the other hand, has a shorter wing and hence the emargination falls well inside the length of the tertials - as is the case in this French bird.

 

[Tib78]

Yes Peter, I had already mentionned this feature on a previous discussion with the local recorders but people were not convinced that the images were sharp enough to assess accuratly those kind on details.
But thanks anyway. And just to keep you guys posted, most people seem to have reconsider their opinion now and the bird will be recorded as a Melodious.

 

[JANJ]

Sometimes Hippo discussions takes on 5 pages - like the one here. Ceck it out for the fun and interest of it

http://www.surfbirds.com/forum/showthread.php?5201-Hippo-North-Wales&highlight=melodious+warbler

JanJ

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

Sometimes Hippo discussions takes on 5 pages - like the one here. Ceck it out for the fun and interest of it

http://www.surfbirds.com/forum/showthread.php?5201-Hippo-North-Wales&highlight=melodious+warbler

JanJ

Blimey what a carry on. I could have stopped at the original post, now I've got to go and have a lie down in a dark room.