An interesting Tit from Pakistan (1 Viewer)

[Azan Khan]

Hello everyone, an interesting photo of Coal Tit was captured by a photographer at Haveli, Azad Kashmir, which is in the northeast of Pakistan. In Pakistan, we have Black-crested/Spot-winged Tit (Periparus ater melanolophus) while this individual bird look quite different from that. It look more like the nominate subspecies. I could be wrong though.

I'd really appreciate your feedback regarding the identity of potentially a different subspecies of Coal Tit for Pakistan. Thanking you all in anticipation.

Photo credit: Marium Majeed Dar

 

[Xenospiza]

Yes, I agree it looks most like ssp ater to me as well.
The birds breeding in China (Xinjiang) and Kyrgyzstan seem to be much darker below – I would also expect them to be less prone to vagrancy.

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Worth noting that there have been very large irruptive movements of Coal Tits across northern Europe this autumn, with ater birds appearing in unusual places as a result (e.g. unprecedented numbers in northern Scotland today). It may be that something similar has been happening in other parts of their range too.

 

[Azan Khan]

Worth noting that there have been very large irruptive movements of Coal Tits across northern Europe this autumn, with ater birds appearing in unusual places as a result (e.g. unprecedented numbers in northern Scotland today). It may be that something similar has been happening in other parts of their range too.

That is interesting. By the way, this bird was clicked on 19 February this year