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Sturnus sp. (Madrid, Spain) (1 Viewer)

SLopezM

Sergio López Martín
Hello everyone. I saw this bird today in Velilla de San Antonio (Madrid). Can you tell if it is Sturnus vulgaris or S. unicolor even though the quality is low?
 

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What makes you think it's not identifiable to species?

Common Starling can look fairly unspotted, and these photos are not nearly good enough to show for sure that there are no spots; and I do not see the elongated throat feathers that are characteristic of Spotless Starling.

Niels
 
Both species are in fresh non-breeding/winter plumage right now. The main distinguishing feature at a distance is really not the body spotting, it's the fresh fringing to the wing feathers, with Common Starling having very noticeable and broad pale (brown) and contrasting fringes to those feathers (wings stand out as unequivocally paler than the body at a distance), while Spotless has no such fringes and wings look uniform with the body.
Now the bird in the photo: is it just a black silhouette with no colour visible? Not at all. It is dark, as expected given the species we're talking about, but plenty to see there: black "mask" on the lores to the eyes, reflections on upper cheeks, over the scapulars, upper breast (making a darker wing to almost stand out), and legs appear brownish (not black, as in a silhouette) which reinforces the idea that if paler fringes were present on the wing they'd be obviously visible. I don't see much problem with this.

P.S.: this could be useful: http://blascozumeta.com/wp-content/...sseriformes/417a.identification-starlings.pdf
 
Both species are in fresh non-breeding/winter plumage right now. The main distinguishing feature at a distance is really not the body spotting, it's the fresh fringing to the wing feathers, with Common Starling having very noticeable and broad pale (brown) and contrasting fringes to those feathers (wings stand out as unequivocally paler than the body at a distance), while Spotless has no such fringes and wings look uniform with the body.
Now the bird in the photo: is it just a black silhouette with no colour visible? Not at all. It is dark, as expected given the species we're talking about, but plenty to see there: black "mask" on the lores to the eyes, reflections on upper cheeks, over the scapulars, upper breast (making a darker wing to almost stand out), and legs appear brownish (not black, as in a silhouette) which reinforces the idea that if paler fringes were present on the wing they'd be obviously visible. I don't see much problem with this.

P.S.: this could be useful: http://blascozumeta.com/wp-content/...sseriformes/417a.identification-starlings.pdf

I cannot see those details on either of the two computers I have used.

Niels
 
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