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Rosefinch Sichuan (1 Viewer)

china guy

A taff living in Sichuan
Here's a couple of shots of a male Rosefinch taken a few days ago at Moxi, Sichuan. Moxi is very close to Kangding - elevation is just over 2000m - the habitat is farmland/scrub - in an area that at the moment is full of altitudinal migrants. The Rosefinch most commonly seen in this patch is Vinaceous.
So far its been hard to match the colorations of this bird up with images found on the web - are there any Rosefinch experts who can lead me in the right direction???
 

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Nice one - Sharpe's Rosefinch! Previously lumped with Spot-winged Rosefinch of the Himalaya until Rasmussen produced an article on them in Birding Asia 3+ years ago. This is a really difficult species, I've only seen it once at Emei Shan.

The pale tramlines on the mantle, dark coverts contrasting with super and pale breast, pale edges to the tertials make it a straight forward id.

Cheers

James
 
Cheers James - I was actually looking at your pic of spot-winged on OBC - and was thinking this looked like spot-winged without the spots!!!!
My wife took the photo - she's now pretty chuffed at getting this one B :)
 
Yes, they are not very spotty in China - hence the split. Would be difficult to tell from my photo - absolutely appalling photo!

Is it ok if I upload it to the Oriental Bird Club image datebase?
 
I have already contacted OBC - we'd be proud to have the photo in any image database.
The photo credit is Sid and Meggie Francis.

We were lucky to get the pic - we were guiding at the time - and had a bunch of Chinese Babax, Elliot's Laughers and couple of Black-headed Laughers performing for our guests when the Rosefinch first, briefly, flew in - I was the only one who caught it.
My wife then split off to look for photos when she found the bird about 20 mins latter - and got a chance to get her shots.

James your pic isn't that bad - from all the Rosefinch images it was the one that led me closest to a possible id.
 
If you accept this as specific species then it's indeed - Carpodacus verreauxii

But as a subspecies of Spot-winged Rosefinch, it goes to - Carpodacus rodopeplus verreauxii

Since OBC feel that the split between Sharpe's and Spot-winged has not been fully argued and discussed they have classified our bird as a subspecies in their image section.
 
That's a real understatement ant - you can almost throw the McKinnon/Phillips China guide out of the window when when it comes to identifying Rosefinches (at least if you're trying to do it from the plates) - a far better resource are the pics at OBC!!!
 
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