Northern Wheatear age and race, Flamborough, England. (1 Viewer)

[Brett Richards]

I believe this is 2cy, but the wings are not a brown and faded as I would have expected. Is it Greenland? Svensson says of leucorhoa "2Y males may sometimes be recognised having prominent rufous-brown tinge (grey on upperparts visible only on proximal parts of feathers)". I seem to recollect this is because Greenlands moult later and the brown tips have not yet worn off, but I'm not sure where I got this from.

Comments welcomed.

Brett

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

I believe this is 2cy, but the wings are not a brown and faded as I would have expected. Is it Greenland? Svensson says of leucorhoa "2Y males may sometimes be recognised having prominent rufous-brown tinge (grey on upperparts visible only on proximal parts of feathers)". I seem to recollect this is because Greenlands moult later and the brown tips have not yet worn off, but I'm not sure where I got this from.

Comments welcomed.

Looks like a perfectly good leucorhoa Brett due to a combination of extensive brown tipping to mantle feathers and, to a lesser extent, lower scapulars + underparts heavily saturated warm, orange-buff. Regarding age, not so straightforward, images are somewhat contradictory (lighting perhaps?) and the wings don't look particularly bleached (brown) + not seeing any obvious moult limit in coverts so, perhaps safest left age uncertain.

Grahame

 

[Brett Richards]

Looks like a perfectly good leucorhoa Brett due to a combination of extensive brown tipping to mantle feathers and, to a lesser extent, lower scapulars + underparts heavily saturated warm, orange-buff. Regarding age, not so straightforward, images are somewhat contradictory (lighting perhaps?) and the wings don't look particularly bleached (brown) + not seeing any obvious moult limit in coverts so, perhaps safest left age uncertain.

Grahame

Thanks Grahame

Brett

 

[Brian J Small]

An interesting paper on timing of different Northern Wheatear subspecies migration through Norfolk, which is echoed by Suffolk.

https://www.nwnrg.co.uk/research/wheatear/Wheatear_paper%201990-1996.pdf

Brian

 

[KC Foggin]

I wish we had this species across the pond. Beautiful images Brett!

 

[njlarsen]

Seems to be quite a lot of observations in North America, and if traveling around in Alaska, it might even be annual somewhere. But if the flight there is shorter than across the pond is a different question
Niels

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

I wish we had this species across the pond. Beautiful images Brett!

Seems to be quite a lot of observations in North America, and if traveling around in Alaska, it might even be annual somewhere. But if the flight there is shorter than across the pond is a different question
Niels

It is a widespread but sparse breeder in much of Alaska and NW Canada, from where it undertakes a journey across the Bering Sea, transversing Russia, through Kazakhstan then down through Arabia to wintering grounds in sub-Saharan NE/E Africa

A different population in NE Canada and Greenland (leucorhoa) migrates across the N Atlantic to the British Isles then south to wintering grounds in sub-Saharan W. Africa.

Migration routes https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2011.1223

Grahame

 

[jogresh]

Very interesting post.
I had a fall of Wheatear on the N Wales coast during a bird survey a day or two before your post, as a warm front went over and it started to drizzle. 2 of the male birds had extensive brown in the mantle, and reduced blue-grey. Really quite striking (in addition to the deep buff - apricot all the way down the underparts). I was struck by one's passing resemblance to BEW or Desert. These I had down as nailed-on Greenlands. A female bird was also quite strikingly coloured, and appeared large.
This feature of brown in the upper parts isn't really mentioned in the Collins, or Duivendijk, though Martin Garner discussed it... 🤔
Which Svensson mentions the browner mantles, Brett? Ringers guide?
It appears that second calendar birds in mid April look pretty similar to older birds - is that right? TIA.