Upchar's Warbler ? Pakistan (1 Viewer)

more than 4 months old photographs and extremely cropped because bird was far away, capture at Thar, Sindh Pakistan on 10th September, 2019.

This is a confusing bird, mainly I think as it appears to be partially leucistic. The apparent wing panel looks as though it is from very pale feathers as an abnormality. This makes ID very difficult.

My initial thought is it doesn't look like Upchers.

I would look at an acrocephalus.

Beyond that, as it has atypical plumage, the question is what is 'true' and what modified.

Doesn’t look like an Acro to my eye the UTC’s appearing too short Hippolais for me, regarding pale panel to secondaries...often can be a feature of this group, don’t know if it’s a first Winter trait?

Cheers

Upcher's seems to me a good option.
Jean

It has grey feet, why not Clamorous Reed?

Your bird is not an aberrant/leucistic individual as has been suggested, but rather a fairly typical adult Iduna in the process of undergoing its post-breeding moult so, Booted/Sykes's, but which one? The images are heavily cropped and consequently the quality defy analysis of crucial features, though I would suggest the rather long-tailed, 'acrocepheline' appearance favours Sykes's, though best left unidentified.

The rather patchy appearance is typical of moulting Booted/Sykes's, the pale areas relate to old, worn/bleached feathers while the darker areas relate to fresh, newly moulted feathers see

http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?Bird_Image_ID=109020&Bird_ID=2727&Bird_Family_ID=&Location=
http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?Bird_Image_ID=156961&Bird_ID=1756&Bird_Family_ID=&Location=

Upcher's has a much reduced narrow supercilium which terminates at the rear of the eye and would appear fuller-tailed while the short under tail coverts would rule out Acrocephalus as does tail structure.

Grahame

Thank yoi

Thank you guys for you feedback 😊.