White-eyes in VietNam (Oriental or Japanese?) (1 Viewer)

glennmanc · Jan 21, 2019

Is it possible to say (without using "known" distribution) what these two photos A and B are?
Possibilities are both Japanese, both Oriental, one of each (A or B), or impossible to say from photos.
They were taken in 2 different places in Vietnam. The 3 parts of each photo may be different individuals, since there was a small flock in both cases.

andyb39 · Jan 21, 2019

The bird(s?) in A looks more like Japanese, as the throat doesn't really contrast with the head. In B, the bird to the right looks to have a contrasting yellow throat, perhaps making it Oriental. Not sure about the other two images/individuals. The eye-ring on the bird in the middle of image B looks narrower than on the other individuals - does that signify anything?

The bird in B has a black loral stripe, supposedly a feature of Oriental.

Larry Sweetland · Jan 21, 2019

And so the fun begins! Check the plentiful shiny new IOC white-eye splits lumps and shuffles here:

https://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/sylvias/

I think your birds look better for what is now Swinhoe's, of which it looks like a couple (?) of subspp occur in Vietnam. Due to apparent lack of yellow stripe on central unds and not particularly bright frons. But I could be wrong.

It looks like siamensis also occurs in Vietnam, which is now under Indian White-eye. I don't know what that looks like. There may also be other forms of what used to be Japanese and Oriental occuring as non-breeding visitors, and potentially that might not be covered by their ranges in the link above, for all I know. Hopefully someone like Grahame or James can advise. Have fun

andyb39 · Jan 21, 2019

And so the fun begins! Check the plentiful shiny new IOC white-eye splits lumps and shuffles here:

I was hoping nobody would bring that up!

andyb39 · Jan 21, 2019

Larry, according to both IOC 9.1 and HBW Alive, simplex only occurs in extreme NE Vietnam or E Tonkin. I'm not sure if Hanoi falls under this. All other birds are supposedly the race siamensis of Oriental/Indian. I'm not sure which category birds in Hanoi fall into. I saw one bird in gardens which was pretty uniformly green and put it down as Japanese at the time.

Another difficulty is birds seen at Sapa, such as in the Ham Rong Botanical Gardens, where I saw a couple of small flocks. I couldn't tell which they were as views weren't good enough. Craig Robson thinks they're Japanese. HBW mentions hybrids have been found in N Vietnam but I can't see any references.

arcadillor · Jan 21, 2019

1.Swinhoe's white eye
2.Indian white eye

Larry Sweetland · Jan 21, 2019

andyb39 said:
Larry, according to both IOC 9.1 and HBW Alive, simplex only occurs in extreme NE Vietnam or E Tonkin. I'm not sure if Hanoi falls under this. All other birds are supposedly the race siamensis of Oriental/Indian. I'm not sure which category birds in Hanoi fall into. I saw one bird in gardens which was pretty uniformly green and put it down as Japanese at the time.

Another difficulty is birds seen at Sapa, such as in the Ham Rong Botanical Gardens, where I saw a couple of small flocks. I couldn't tell which they were as views weren't good enough. Craig Robson thinks they're Japanese. HBW mentions hybrids have been found in N Vietnam but I can't see any references.

Thanks Andy. Just updating my IOC list now, and the white-eyes have been quite an effort to sort out, in Asia and Africa! Eg, Everett's only in Philippines now..with Hume's in Malaysia...Oriental no longer exists, and is now Sangkar on Java, but Indian in most places....Mountain no longer exists, but is part of what was Japanese and is now called Warbling ...and some of what were Japanese are now Swinhoe's etc etc :smoke::smoke:

andyb39 · Jan 21, 2019

"Warbling White-eye"? :eek!:

andyb39 · Jan 21, 2019

Larry Sweetland said:
Thanks Andy. Just updating my IOC list now, and the white-eyes have been quite an effort to sort out, in Asia and Africa! Eg, Everett's only in Philippines now..with Hume's in Malaysia...Oriental no longer exists, and is now Sangkar on Java, but Indian in most places....Mountain no longer exists, but is part of what was Japanese and is now called Warbling ...and some of what were Japanese are now Swinhoe's etc etc :smoke::smoke:

In addition, the mangrove-dwelling populations on the Gulf of Thailand coast and the Thai-Malay peninsula, respectively williamsoni and erwini (formerly auriventer) are now included in simplex! Auriventer is now the Latin name for Hume's, formerly Everett's! :-C

Andy Adcock · Jan 21, 2019

Larry Sweetland said:
Thanks Andy. Just updating my IOC list now, and the white-eyes have been quite an effort to sort out, in Asia and Africa! Eg, Everett's only in Philippines now..with Hume's in Malaysia...Oriental no longer exists, and is now Sangkar on Java, but Indian in most places....Mountain no longer exists, but is part of what was Japanese and is now called Warbling ...and some of what were Japanese are now Swinhoe's etc etc :smoke::smoke:

Which race on Mindanao?

What a bloody mess to sort out, thank god for Scythebill, as I've noted all the various races, it 'should' figure them out for me with the next update.

Andy Adcock · Jan 21, 2019

andyb39 said:
Larry, according to both IOC 9.1 and HBW Alive, simplex only occurs in extreme NE Vietnam or E Tonkin. I'm not sure if Hanoi falls under this. All other birds are supposedly the race siamensis of Oriental/Indian. I'm not sure which category birds in Hanoi fall into. I saw one bird in gardens which was pretty uniformly green and put it down as Japanese at the time.

Another difficulty is birds seen at Sapa, such as in the Ham Rong Botanical Gardens, where I saw a couple of small flocks. I couldn't tell which they were as views weren't good enough. Craig Robson thinks they're Japanese. HBW mentions hybrids have been found in N Vietnam but I can't see any references.

I've seen this in Vietnam but what about Taiwan, what's that now?

Larry Sweetland · Jan 21, 2019

andyadcock said:
I've seen this in Vietnam but what about Taiwan, what's that now?

According to the version of IOC 9.1 I'm looking at, Z.s.simplex also occurs on Taiwan. Have a look at the link I posted Andy, scroll down to the white-eyes, and you can work them all out

Andy Adcock · Jan 21, 2019

Larry Sweetland said:
According to the version of IOC 9.1 I'm looking at, Z.s.simplex also occurs on Taiwan. Have a look at the link I posted Andy, scroll down to the white-eyes, and you can work them all out

Thanks Larry,
just had a reply from Adam Winer, hopes to update Scythebill 'Probably within the week'.

I've got everthing in there sub-species wise, that I can figure out, so I'll let that do the work!

James Lowther · Jan 21, 2019

Anyone know if japonensis in the new sense (I,e. “Warbling”) winters in indochina? Have seen “Japanese” in both Japan and Laos, possibly 2 spp. under the new taxonomy?
Thanks
James

johnallcock · Jan 22, 2019

andyb39 said:
Larry, according to both IOC 9.1 and HBW Alive, simplex only occurs in extreme NE Vietnam or E Tonkin. I'm not sure if Hanoi falls under this. All other birds are supposedly the race siamensis of Oriental/Indian. I'm not sure which category birds in Hanoi fall into. I saw one bird in gardens which was pretty uniformly green and put it down as Japanese at the time.

Another difficulty is birds seen at Sapa, such as in the Ham Rong Botanical Gardens, where I saw a couple of small flocks. I couldn't tell which they were as views weren't good enough. Craig Robson thinks they're Japanese. HBW mentions hybrids have been found in N Vietnam but I can't see any references.

James Lowther said:
Anyone know if japonensis in the new sense (I,e. “Warbling”) winters in indochina? Have seen “Japanese” in both Japan and Laos, possibly 2 spp. under the new taxonomy?
Thanks
James

Populations of simplex in much of China are migratory, and I think many birds winter in SE Asia. It should occur in much of Vietnam and it is probably this species that James saw in Laos. I don't know about the migratory behaviour of the Japanese taxa, but I'm not aware of any records of this reaching mainland China, let alone SE Asia.

In my opinion the birds in photo A look typical of simplex. I'm not sure about the birds in B, but they seem bright above and white below, and I'd lean towards siamensis. There seems a lot of black in the face, but I have seen Hong Kong birds (supposedly all simplex) approaching this.

I think this new taxonomy is going to cause a lot of confusion in SE Asia over the coming years!

andyb39 · Jan 22, 2019

So can you tell us where you photographed the birds now, Glenn?

glennmanc · Jan 22, 2019

This generated more interest than I expected! I gather from this that "old Oriental" = "new Indian", and old Japanese = new Swinhoe's. Having spent a lot of time in DaLat, I've come to doubt the very convenient assumption that all white-eyes in DaLat are "Oriental/Indian". I agreed with Andy and Arcadillor that birds in (A) taken in DaLat look like Japanese/Swinhoe's while birds in (B) taken in Mang Den, north of Kontum, look like Oriental/Indian. This is the opposite of what one might expect from guide-book distributions. I'm glad that 2 other people can see a difference between (A) and (B), even without the near-mythical yellow ventral stripe which I have yet to see in VietNam.

James Lowther · Jan 22, 2019

johnallcock said:
Populations of simplex in much of China are migratory, and I think many birds winter in SE Asia. It should occur in much of Vietnam and it is probably this species that James saw in Laos. I don't know about the migratory behaviour of the Japanese taxa, but I'm not aware of any records of this reaching mainland China, let alone SE Asia.

thanks John, given what Glenn says about the ventral stripe I suppose it's possible my Laotian birds were siamensis, I am certainly no white-eye ID expert! On the pro-simplex side they were in a mixed flock with chestnut-flanked, another wintering species in Laos.

James

Andy Adcock · Jan 22, 2019

James Lowther said:
thanks John, given what Glenn says about the ventral stripe I suppose it's possible my Laotian birds were siamensis, I am certainly no white-eye ID expert! On the pro-simplex side they were in a mixed flock with chestnut-flanked, another wintering species in Laos.

James

Laos seems to be good for Chestnut-flanked, it's the only place I've ever seen them.

White-eyes in VietNam (Oriental or Japanese?) (1 Viewer)

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