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Great Crested Flycatcher, Palo Verde, Costa Rica (1 Viewer)

alanc

alanc

Just an earthbound misfit
England
This individual seen in December. In the field it looked a little different from other GCF's I've come across. I filed it as GCF due to the colour of the lower mandible.
Am I missing something here? All photos the same bird.
any comments welcome.
thanks alan
 

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Hi Andy
yes i thought of BCF but the bill colour put me of. This especially noticeable in pic 5. Do BCF have a pale base to the bill? both my field guides say the bill is black. It certainly looked smaller than other GC's I've seen
alan
 
Look at the first shot Alan, the bill appears all dark from that angle, I wonder if feather wear at the base of the bill is affecting what we see and I can only repeat what I said about the breastband.
 
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andyadcock said:
Look at the first shot Alan, the billa ppears all dark from that angle, I wonder if feather wera at the base of the bill is affecting what we see and I can only repeat what I said about the breastband.
Click to expand...

Note the point about the extent of grey on the breast but I think it's actually slightly closer to Great-crested in this case (although a quick Google shows much variation for both species). The bill pattern matches better too IMHO. Last, my first gen. Sibley says "extensive rufous" tail as we see here rather than "fairly extensive rufous" (i.e. a bit duller) for Brown-crested. So I vote Great Crested. Pity we can't see the tertials.
 
THE_FERN said:
Note the point about the extent of grey on the breast but I think it's actually slightly closer to Great-crested in this case (although a quick Google shows much variation for both species). The bill pattern matches better too IMHO. Last, my first gen. Sibley says "extensive rufous" tail as we see here rather than "fairly extensive rufous" (i.e. a bit duller) for Brown-crested. So I vote Great Crested. Pity we can't see the tertials.
Click to expand...


This is how I expect to see the breastband on GC, the OP is quite a bit further down the breast?

https://d1ia71hq4oe7pn.cloudfront.net/og/75222321-1200px.jpg
 
andyadcock said:
This is how I expect to see the breastband on GC, the OP is quite a bit further down the breast?

https://d1ia71hq4oe7pn.cloudfront.net/og/75222321-1200px.jpg
Click to expand...

Yes, but they are quite variable (quick Google). I found quite a few pics with an extent similar to the one here. My Sibley has 2 slightly different extents shown; it also suggests that yellow is slightly stronger (here) than on Brown-crested although again web pics suggest this varies [as you'd expect from light if nothing else]
 
THE_FERN said:
Yes, but they are quite variable (quick Google). I found quite a few pics with an extent similar to the one here. My Sibley has 2 slightly different extents shown; it also suggests that yellow is slightly stronger (here) than on Brown-crested although again web pics suggest this varies [as you'd expect from light if nothing else]
Click to expand...

I've seen a lot of birds on Google that seem to be wrongly ID'd, no wonder if it's so variable, thank goodness we're not considering Nuttings too which shares it's range with BC in that part of CR.
 
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Great Crested Flycatcher to me. Brown-crested shows a bit more dark along the inner webs of the outer rectrices, whereas the dark on the outer webs just barely bleeds onto the inner webs in a GCFL, like this bird. Overall, the yellow looks too bright and the breast too dark gray for BCFL. I don't think the extent of the gray breast differs among the various candidates.

Andy
 
As Andy said, the tail pattern is correct for Great Crested. Brown-crested has dark extending onto the inner web. Also the pink base to the bill in the last photo is real.
 
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