Hi all,
parallel I sent a mail also to the dutch birder from Texel, who had confirmed my ID for that... He said, yes, on photographs the bird seems to have a somewhat rufous crown.
However, he said, isabellinus male may show a slight contrasting crown like this bird. But other features clearly indicating isabellinus male are the unmarked, buffy underparts, hardly contrasting with upperparts. The black mask lacking a light eyebrow and continuing only as a very narrow band on forehead and the light base of bill also say isabellinus.
He had been trapping and observing such birds in Kasakhstan and admits there are some difficult ones, especuially juv/first winter, but this one here is easy by comparison.
As the other features fit to isabellinus very well and this confirms that they can show a rufous crown I feel happy.
Concerning the Danish birder story: I guess it is my fault; I should have spoken German as every proper German does in the Netherlands
and not resort to such exotic languages like English
,
But actually he wasn´t really wrong - I have some Danish ancestors also...
Main thing is the bird was found, IDed and confirmed.
But one more question: what is the general view concerning speculigerus at the moment (if there is a general view)? Subspecies of isabellinus or species in its own right? In the web you find both , but more often the first version.
And how closely are isabellinus and phoenicuroides now?