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Red-breasted flycatcher or Taiga? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter silverwing 400
- Start date
dwatsonbirder
Well-known member
An interesting bird, with a couple of pro-Taiga features. I've personally only seen this species in Nov - Jan, so not sure I can offer much comment. Is the video available anywhere?
silverwing 400
Member
Thanks,but is there any chance to consider this bird as a taiga Just based on a picture?
No need for dna or Or voices?
I note that there have been at least 3 rbf reported across Israel over the last week end.
I am not so confident as andyb. The difference in the species is not on the tail itself by the upper tail coverts - dark in Taiga and not dark in rbf. As these are not in sharp focus I am struggling to see where the tail feathers end and the tail coverts start. I think that the it is the tail that is black and the tail coverts are grey.
I agree the beak looks black - I note Svensson's warning that it is difficult to tell the colour in a lateral view.
The photos look very contrasty, suggesting that they have a lot of processing in them. Any chance of originals?
silverwing 400
Member
No problem,
I will send the original photos.
I think that there is blacker upper tail .
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silverwing 400
Member
Another Original photo..
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silverwing 400
Member
I sent original photos, what does the bird look like to you?
Thanks so much for helping identify this tricky flycatcher..
I still believe this bird had grey tail coverts and that makes it Red-breasted rather than Taiga.
I am still confused by how dark the bill looks but maybe this is a product of the angle of the photo.
I agree that this bird is Red-breasted based on the tail pattern. This is especially clear in the OP's photo 4.
In Japanese these two birds (which until fairly recently were considered conspecific) are called White-tailed Flycatchers because of the conspicuous white sides part-way up the tail (after the split, Red-breasted gets the addition of 'Western' to its Japanese name).
Strangely, considering that they breed much farther away, Red-breasted is a much more common winter special here in Japan than Taiga. Presumably this is due to the fact that Red-breasted usually migrates west to east for the winter, so it's easy to keep going too far in the same direction, and end up in Japan. The Taiga, which migrates north to south needs to be blown sideways from its migration route in order to end up in Japan.
Anyway, I've only seen one Taiga in Japan, but several Red-breasted, which is why I can give clear pictures of the Red-breasted tail pattern, but the pictures of the Taiga tail pattern are not so definite, though I hope you can still see what I mean.
In Red-breasted the black of the tail stops at or just before the top of the white side-bars and abruptly changes to brown (or grey, depending on light), whereas in Taiga the black continues after the white side-bars to the end of the tail coverts.
Attached picture one is the OP's bird photo four showing the tail pattern clearly. Pictures two and three are two (different) Red-breasted that I have seen, which show the same tail pattern clearly. Pictures four and five are of the one Taiga I have seen (five minutes total viewing time) where I hope you can see that the black continues beyond the white side-bars.
And nothing in my experience suggests that a significant bill-colour difference can be seen except possibly at close range and in bright light, and certainly not in photos of the quality of the OP's post (I wonder if they are smartphone photos, even).
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So by your reckoning this bird, with a greyish-brown rump, should be Red-breasted too?
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Hi Andy: yes, I would have thought so. (See my photo 3 which seems to be almost identical.)
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Hi Andy: I thought without looking that you were replying to me, but I realised after posting that you were replying to Muppit. But my comment stands; yes that surely should be Red-breasted.
By the way, what are you doing up so early; surely without your child you should be able to have a bit of a lie-in?
Here in Nara, our light lockdown has ended more or less. The parks have always been open, but the park car parks which had been closed have now re-opened. T and I had pizza out on Sunday lunchtime. All eight new cases in Nara Prefecture in the month of May have been family of previous cases. The whole country had 32 new tested cases yesterday and twelve deaths (the nearest to us was 90 years old).
Keep trucking! Hope you get to see the family soon.
Hi Mac,
I suppose my question was aimed at both of you. Your answer was interesting........ I'm not going to reveal where I photographed it, so it doesn't influence people.
I'm always up around this time, even though it's barely daybreak - force of habit.
Hoping to be reunited with the family soon - hopefully in 10 days or so.
There don't seem to be many people around at the moment. Maybe if you think this bird is special because of the location, you should make a separate thread?
Anyway, fingers crossed for the ten days away meeting with your family.
T & I are wondering if we will ever be able to go to Africa again; and how the people in Africa who have been so kind and helpful to us on our travels are faring? Corona + locusts + flooding + no-tourists in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda.
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johnallcock
Well-known member
I don't really agree with Muppit and MacNara. I think the OP bird has black uppertail coverts that do not contrast with the tail, suggesting Taiga Fly. The black bill and grey tones also support Taiga Fly, as mentioned by Andy in Post #3. But the quality of the photos isn't great to confirm ID.
If this photo had come from Hong Kong (where Taiga is commoner but both occur) I wouldn't have considered the possibility of Red-breasted.
If this photo had come from Hong Kong (where Taiga is commoner but both occur) I wouldn't have considered the possibility of Red-breasted.
johnallcock
Well-known member
This one looks like Taiga to me. The difference is in the uppertail coverts, not the rump, and they look black here but are not easy to see.
Thanks John, but it was more of a rhetorical question. I wanted to make a point, because in my opinion this bird is strikingly similar to the OP bird. I photographed it in Vietnam (sorry about the bad photo - I'm a crap bird photographer) and I identified it as a Taiga at the time. I'm not sure there are even any RBF records in Vietnam anyway, and at the time I didn't even consider it.
The question is how rare would Taiga be in Israel - it's pretty damn rare here in the UAE, with only 8 records. I'm not sure the images are good enough for the record to be accepted without noting or recording calls. It's the kind of situation where good field notes might have been better.
silverwing 400
Member
Thank you all...No recording calls unfortunately, Taiga is very rare in Israel and in my opinion will not accept i..
Too bad ... there are photos of another photographer, I'll send them.
Hi John, I hope you are well there in HK and getting back a bit of normality (even though none of us knows how long it will last).
I'm wondering which photo you are referring to when you say 'this photo'? Is it the OP's photo four which I reproduced in my earlier post? One of the things that Japanese birder friends pointed out to me was that in Taiga the black of the tail simpy 'blends' into the brown of the back, but that in Red-breasted the brown upper-tail coverts show a kind of 'u' pushing into the black of the tail. They might be wrong, of course, and it could vary with individuals.
I would be interested to hear from silverwing on what equipment was used to take these photos. He says 'filmed' which suggests video captures (but it might be a language error), but I still wonder if (whether stills or videos) the photos might be from a smartphone, in which case I also wonder whether the comments about 'grey tones' and bill colour are really relevant.
Anyway, I attach some photos showing what I mean.
Photo one is the Red-breasted (without the red breast) that I posted earlier, but showing it flying with the brown 'u' cutting into the black tail that I talk about clearly visible. Photo two shows my Taiga from Japan with the 'blending'. Photo three shows my other Japanese Red-breasted with the 'u' marked. Photo four shows Andy's bird with the same feature. And photo five shows the OP's photo four with the same feature. In my opinion.
I don't have any skin in the game here, in the sense of trying to show or deny that one of these (recently conspecific) birds is in Israel or Vietnam (although if it's in Japan and HK, I don't see why it might not be in Vietnam also - when we went to Cuc Phuong in Vietnam our government-supplied 'guide' could barely recognise a feral pigeon; on the positive side (21st century) he dumped us a couple of times because he had to pick up his kids from kindergarten because his wife was working (at a real job presumably).
But anyway I'd be interested to have someone point out what kind of black/brown margin or cutoff between the tail and uppertail coverts would separate these species?
And isn't this margin very difficult to see anyway, unless you have the same bird around for quite a few days, or you are very lucky?
I have recordings of the 'zit' of my local Red-breasted (the one without the red breast) but not of any of the others. It's winter, so they weren't singing anyway. Is this a feature that can distinguish these clearly?
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