White Wagtail / Japanese Wagtail Questions (1 Viewer)

[MacNara]

I was recently in the south of France, and I saw various White (Pied) Wagtails which seemed slightly different to each other.

Photo 1 is clearly Motacilla alba alba, which is the locally expected species. The bird in photo 2 is looking down, but the head still seems exceptionally white. Could this be dukhunensis? And the bird in photo 3 has an eye line: is this 'just one of those things' or is this ocularis?

The next two photos are from Japan (Nara) this morning. Recently I had a PM from xuky.summer, a Chinese regular on BF, about photos of Japanese Wagtail 'first winter'. The birds in my two photos here were together (a group of three, actually). If I just used my Japanese photo books, then I would clearly say these photos showed Japanese Wagtail 'first winter'. But Brazil's 'Birds of East Asia' shows this juvenile Japanese Wagtail as well as a half-body of a juvenile White Wagtail - personata, which is from central Asia, so I don't know why Brazil thought it was worth including in his book - which looks similar, but with a larger supercilium. I am fairly confident that my photos are Japanese Wagtail, but if anyone can confirm this, I would be grateful. I worry that recently fledged lugens White Wagtails might also look like this. The only adult I saw today in the region of these juvenile birds was a lugens White Wagtail, but it was not with the juveniles, and both are very common in the small patch.

 

[Southern Frogmouth]

Alstrom and Mild lumped dukhunensis with alba as the differences were too slight and involved width of wing-bars. I see no reason for #2 to be dukhunensis based on what can be seen. #3 is just one of those things as it is not right for ocularis - the stripe should be more obvious, run in front of the eye and join the nape. Juvenile lugens has dark shaft streaks on the median coverts and #4 & #5 are spot-on for Japanese Wagtails.

Cheers

Roy

 

[MacNara]

Thank you! That's great.

 

[chris butterworth]

I can't help witb #2, I'm afraid. Regarding #3, I don't think you could rule out a 1st summer baicalensis [/] with that grey back, but rather poorly marked wing. If I saw either #4 or #5 in Japan I wouldn't hesitate to call them Japanese Wags. Apart from the faint / sullied supercillia, their tails are proportionally longer than any alba taxon and the flanks / belly 'dirty' looking ( even on the palest birds ). I''ve only seen a few personata but they've struck me as being a 'purer' grey, lacking the brownish tones of grandis. According to Brazil personata is a 'rare visitor to Japan', how rare I wouldn't like to say, so it's probably been added as a possible confusion species

 

[MacNara]

According to Brazil personata is a 'rare visitor to Japan', how rare I wouldn't like to say, so it's probably been added as a possible confusion species

Hi, Chris.

I'm sure you're right.

But my problem in using Brazil in Japan is that sometimes the subspecies of a bird that is said to be in Japan isn't illustrated at all, and then others described as scarce in the region as a whole are illustrated carefully.

I wonder why Brazil has chosen the particular selection of pictures: e.g is there a picture of the personata juvenile because it's a good average of the juveniles of all the other subspecies? If it's the juvenile of a scarce subspecies that doesn't breed in the area anyway, and doesn't resemble the juveniles of other subspecies, then what's the point? Is it only to cause doubt and fear among ignoramuses like me.

I mainly asked this question because I thought I might send these photos to xuky.summer since I was asked, and wanted to be sure I wasn't sending photos of the wrong species - and the main reason for my doubts was Brazil's inclusion of an extra-limital subspecies juvenile. (PS: the juvenile lugens on the same page has a yellow face about ten shades darker than any I have seen).

And a question: this bird is described as 'first winter'. I have only ever seen this pattern in May and June. I'm pretty convinced that by the time winter comes around, they look like adults. Is this wrong?

 

[chris butterworth]

It's always struck me as a "strange" selection as well. ( Why does he include alboides which, on distribution, can only refer to a single record in Japan, nevermind the rest of the area covered? ).
Juv. / 1st winter personata could be confused with Japanese, I suppose, but all (?) other taxa in alba are the same, +/-, as lugens / leucopsis in juv / 1st winter plumage, AFAIK.
As for the picture of the "1st winter male" lugens, the rather bright yellowish cream face is spot on for a juvenile but, like you, I've never seen a winter bird looking like that, just a bit "warmer" white on the cheeks than adults. It's more than likely an error in the title ( although the colours of birds in even the best field guides can be 'off'. If you can get a look at Sibley's guides to W. + E. North America the picture of the Brown Thrasher is best described as 'orange').
I think the ID's of your photos are sorted so I wouldn't worry about sending them to Xuky, they are fine.

 

[MacNara]

I think the ID's of your photos are sorted so I wouldn't worry about sending them to Xuky, they are fine.

The point of sending them to Xuky wasn't to identify them, but because Xuky sent a PM a few months ago asking for some because he/she didn't have any and wanted to know what they looked like in photos, to see if they were to be found in Xuky's part of China. And the couple of photos I did have then were rather poor and from a distance (although I did point out there are a couple in Opus also). So, I might send these better ones.