Lesser Whitethroat sp N.East London? (1 Viewer)

Shot early September, thinking there's a lot of white in the outer tail margins. Question...what might be the consensus on the extent of the ''white'' does it include both outer rectrices and if so, does this make it an Eastern contender, also the brown wash appears to extend up the nape?

Cheers

Thought I’d bump this, finding it difficult to believe that no interested party is willing to sacrifice his/her reputation on the ID altar of this taxa. C’mon enhance your status amongst your peers...cos life’s short.

Hello Ken,
thank you for these pictures. You have posted some interesting Lesser WT before, and I have learned much from them. I think, you highlight the problem well: Lesser Whitethroat is one of those common birds, that can be identified by jizz/overall colouration/song, and this is the normal case in everyday birding. But when you look closer at Lesser WT, you see a subtile variation in this species.
A (normally) weak supercilium, a slight brownish wash to the lower neck, variation in the exact shade of brownish/sandy/buffish/grey tones are all within variation for european breeding birds.
I think (and think to agree with you), that this makes vagrant Lesser WT ssp from the east hard to detect and surely overlooked.

See for examples with a brownish wash to at least lower neck here, that are presumed ssp curruca by distribution:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskyKUFHH (15.07.2017, NE-Germany)
https://www.flickr.com/gp/132272873@N04/F565 (28.06.2018, NE-Germany)
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmbjMhpa (24.04.2017, NE-Germany)

Thanks Alexander for your response, agreed that ssp from the East are often overlooked, my mistake in this instance was to film (images are grabs) rather than shutter burst, which would have given me a greater resolution and no doubt allowed me to achieve a better result for ID purposes.

Since 2014 I‘ve averaged between 1-3 Lesser Whitethroats on Autumn passage through the garden each year (3 this year) if that averages out at two per annum that’s twelve birds, of which two at least of the total (c16%) were of Eastern origin.
One bird was as pale as Desert Warbler (Oct.4th 2014) presumed Desert Lesser Whitethroat (unsure which ssp this is now ascribed to) and the second bird Sep.30th 2016 (extensive white in the two outer rectrices and with the brown tint extending to the crown) believe that to have been ssp blythii.

Quite sobering that of a 16% sample of Sylvia curruca Lesser Whitethroats should produce two Eastern Lesser Whitethroat ssp and that they should occur c45 miles inland from the UK East coast two years apart. It would be good to know when Eastern birds start to arrive in Western Europe and over what period of time, also what numbers overwinter and is this in itself an ongoing evolving phenomena?

Cheers

Ken - both blythii and 'Desert' forms are considered by BBRC so you should submit them.

Steve

Steve Lister said:

Ken - both blythii and 'Desert' forms are considered by BBRC so you should submit them.

Steve

Click to expand...

Thanks Steve and well meant 👍....but I wouldn’t stand an earthly with that collective “mindset”.

Cheers