Yellow-rumped Flycatcher: female vs immature male? (1 Viewer)

gandytron said:

I believe the main way of identifying 1st calendar year male in autumn is that they have black upper tail coverts.

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Grahame Walbridge said:

I wish it were so straightforward Dave. Adult female can show essentially black/blackish utc's with a narrow olive brown tip.

The 3 images are all 1st-w's by virtue of the narrow buffish tips to the outermost greater coverts which are retained juvenile feathers. Further, the upper two tertials exhibit a pale 'hooked' tip typical of this age. Adult female shows a variable amount of white to the inner greater coverts only which, may form a solid white patch.

Speaking to Phil Round, sexing 1st-w's is problematic as there is much overlap but a proportion of males may be reliably sexed by a combination of 1) wing length 2)width of rump band and 3) strength of yellow suffusion to the underparts while birds with entirely brown rumps are likely to be females.

So, I would not attempt to sex any of the examples shown above.

Grahame

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