Welsh Peregrine
Well-known member
Wren on the 4th.
I think this post was purely for Sunday the 5th...
Duh? Yes, they are split: https://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/finches/ (scroll just over ⅔ of the way down) :t:
Duh? Yes, they are split: https://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/finches/ (scroll just over ⅔ of the way down) :t:
It was, but then it was decided to carry it on. I'm happy to continue with updates here depending on what happens.
These splits are tentative. The notes to each entry emphasise that, especially the statement 'Redpoll taxonomy is unsettled'...
An equally persuasive case can be made for lumping, given that Mason and Taylor 2015 found little to no genetic separation at species level between any Redpoll populations, whether previously considered separable at species level or not.
Either way, there are too many vagaries that don't at all fit with either approach, which means that further work may shed some light one way or the other. Note also that Amouret et al 2016 made a case for morphological separation in most Redpoll taxa, except for the Iceland taxon which they were researching!
MJB
References
Amouret, J, GT Hallgrimsson, Y Kolbeinsson and S Pálsson. 2016. Morphological differentiation of Icelandic Redpolls, Acanthis flammea islandica. Bird Study 63(1): 37-45
Mason, NA and SA Taylor. 2015. Differentially expressed genes match bill morphology and plumage despite largely undifferentiated genomes in a Holarctic songbird. Mol. Ecol.doi: 10.1111/mec.13140
Are one of you guys in N America happy to collate/run a combined total N America list on this thread (Can be done either outside such as bubo/ebird?, a spreadsheet or just totting up on a post)? I'm happy to do UK and Europe, but realise I don't quite have the time for more where I'm not entirely familiar with all groups/lots of entering data. If possible stick to IOC - then that way we can more easily combine/see how we are progressing as a whole World ...
??
Found a nice male Common Redstart out on my exercise bike ride this morning (southeast Northumbs), my earliest ever by several days :t:
Found a nice male Common Redstart out on my exercise bike ride this morning (southeast Northumbs), my earliest ever by several days :t:
Passage bird (not a breeding site); near-coastal but not on the coast, about 7 km inland - a good record for the site (justabout annual, but usually August) :t:At a coastal site or inland breeder?
Passage bird (not a breeding site); near-coastal but not on the coast, about 7 km inland - a good record for the site (justabout annual, but usually August) :t:
Can't recollect exactly when my previous earliest was, but certainly had them in mid to late April many times before; at a guess, somewhere around 15th. So today's is pretty spectacular for me. There are earlier published records; in recent years, one on 3 April 2017, and historically, the earliest ever 18 March 1968. But the bulk arrival of the majority of the breeding population is typically in the last week of April - I'd guess that would tie in well with your Gambia birds.Thanks. Curious for several reasons, not least I haven't seen one in north east England before 30th April - though I haven't birded up here much at this time of year for a long long time. As indicated elsewhere, Ive just returned from a three-month trip to Gambia and as the flights were getting cancelled, and my stay there was looking like it was going to extend indefinitely, I began to develop a certain poignancy for European migrants that I knew could still get back north, when I couldn't. I said goodbye to the occasional Wheatear, Whinchat or Osprey I'd been seeing throughout the 'winter' but the very last thing I saw, before the government rescue plane, was a couple of migrant Redstarts on my last day. Interesting to know there was already one as far north as Northumberland by this early stage of the year. I wonder where the two are I saw on that last afternoon?