Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Still Blue-chested for me.
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Bee-eater East-Africa (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter Andres1
- Start date
That's what I was saying, Andy.
Seth Miller
Well-known member
The only thing that really doesn't fit Blue-chested Bee-eater is range, and as one wise old birder said, "Birds have wings, and they use them!"
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
Ethiopian Bee-eater (Merops lafresnayii) is actually a totally different species.
Not only it doesn't look the same and range is disjunct, but habitat is montane like Cinnamon-chested (to which it is related) and not large swamps like Blue-breasted.
It is actually the first species I checked : Ethiopian Bee-eater.
It has some similar look indeed, but before claiming a new species for Kenya, it is better to make sure it is not one of the common species which are Little and Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater. Blue-breasted is almost as unlikely than Ethiopian, or even more, in this area IMO.
Not only it doesn't look the same and range is disjunct, but habitat is montane like Cinnamon-chested (to which it is related) and not large swamps like Blue-breasted.
It is actually the first species I checked : Ethiopian Bee-eater.
It has some similar look indeed, but before claiming a new species for Kenya, it is better to make sure it is not one of the common species which are Little and Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater. Blue-breasted is almost as unlikely than Ethiopian, or even more, in this area IMO.
There was no flash, but strong direct sunlight just behind-above me.
Valéry: Sometimes you push your (acknowledged) expertise too far. A little humility sometimes wouldn't be wrong.
In one earlier post on this thread you confidently denied that this bird could be a Cinnamon-chested, and that it must be Little - despite the fact that the white cheek patches are a big problem for an ID of Little.
Then, later you said maybe you had perhaps been too quick to exclude Cinnamon-chested, and maybe it is this.
Now you say that Blue-chested is 'totally' different from Ethiopian Bee-eater (which latter is in none of the books I have (although it is obliquely in 'Birds of the Horn of Africa') and isn't recognised by Clements or the IOC as far as I can see (but is in HBW - creating new species seems to be a big sales point of Handbook of Birds of the World) (HBW)) as though we others are all fools to have considered this as a possibility.
It would have been friendly of you to tell us this at the beginning.
But even HBW says that 'Ethiopian' hybridises with Cinnamon-breasted where they meet (although on HBW's maps they don't actually meet). So: presumably this bird could be a hybrid? Or is it pure Cinnamon? Or are you going to go back and tell us that it's a Little after all?
What features can you see that distinguish the two birds in my composite photos from my previous post?
Admit I'm no expert in this, but haven't seen anything which moves me from blue-breasted. E.g. McNamara's first photo [labelled cinnamon] doesn't show the sharp transition to a lighter belly colour we see in the OP photo.
Ebird suggests there are blue-breasted sightings from north of Mt Kenya which is quite some distance away but not as far as the moon [no idea if they're correct of course].
Happy to be proved (conclusively) wrong!
Ebird suggests there are blue-breasted sightings from north of Mt Kenya which is quite some distance away but not as far as the moon [no idea if they're correct of course].
Happy to be proved (conclusively) wrong!
I know next to nothing about East African Bee-eaters, but as alluded to by MacNara, I am wondering if the blue in this photo is due to a colour artifact.
It's most obvious on the top half of the bill, and between the yellow throat and the top of the black breast band. I took the opportunity in Photoshop to decrease the lightness of the 'Blues', which removes the bleed (but still leaves small bits of blue in the head).
https://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=690052&stc=1&d=1553003994
It's most obvious on the top half of the bill, and between the yellow throat and the top of the black breast band. I took the opportunity in Photoshop to decrease the lightness of the 'Blues', which removes the bleed (but still leaves small bits of blue in the head).
https://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=690052&stc=1&d=1553003994
Attachments
I don't think there is anything wrong with colors, and I do not see what the amount of blue would change, because little blue above the mask can be present in all three candidates (according to my book at least).
I have five more photos of the bird, also one from a side and not in direct sun, and I do not mind sharing the original raw files if that helps (the version here is downsampled a bit), but I'd like to know what we are looking for, before doing so.
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
The crown is supposed to be duller on Cinnamon, your bird has a very bright one.
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
I don't understand your comment to be honest. Merops lafresnayii was considered as a species in 1990 by Sibley and Monroe, as by CINFO in 1993 so when I spotted it first time in 1997, it was just settled in my mind. In the field, linking it with Blue-breasted appear non-sense. I can be a sub-species of Cinnamon-chested, may be, but not Blue-breasted.
Sorry if I didn't notice some author still consider it a sub-species of Blue-breasted, I use much HBW Alive nowadays, as well as Birdlife, same taxonomy.
I don't see neither the need to talk about "humility". I came here while I'm not able to give a positive identification and clearly this thread will show some of my limits and definitely not prove my skills.
I'm interested to share and learn something, nothing else. I've posted thousands of comments on this forum, cutting by half and commenting only when 100% confident, that can be very easy, would give me a much better reputation, but this is not at all my aim.
Tib78
Well-known member
The thick black tip to the tail along with the grayish proximal half to the undertail with just a hint of rufous to the inner edge of the inner web (quite an extreme pattern in fact) should be enough to clinch the id.
Edit: ok sorry I hadn’t seen there were 2 pages. I guess it’s much clearer with the second pic now!
Edit: ok sorry I hadn’t seen there were 2 pages. I guess it’s much clearer with the second pic now!
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
As?
Valéry Schollaert
Respect animals, don't eat or wear their body or s
Cinnamon-chested.
As I said at the beginning of my first post, I started following this thread for self-education.
I think Tib's point is that 'real' Blue-breasted (i.e. Lake Victoria west to the coast) has a cinnamon panel on the wing (clearly not observable in the second photo posted by the OP (it would have been helpful to have posted this rear-view photo in the first post)). Cinnamon-breasted and Ethiopian 'Blue-breasted' Bee-eater don't have this.
Whether the Ethiopian and Cinnamon-chested are one species with two ssp or two species is left in the air.
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Andy: I seem to remember that you said somewhere that there is a new edition of Stevenson and Fanshawe coming out this year. I thought I had made a note of that, but I can't find it. Do you have some kind of link?
Some of the problems on these threads arise because physical books - which are much more useful in general than online stuff for most of us - are not as up to date as some people would like.
Some of the problems on these threads arise because physical books - which are much more useful in general than online stuff for most of us - are not as up to date as some people would like.
Thanks for all the comments and discussion, learned a lot.
Cinnamon panel on the wing is also visible on the book, but not emphasized as an important ID feature, so I missed it.
Sorry for not posting the side image in a first place, but nobody really asked for it as well.
Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Scroll down here, it's the only one I can find quickly but there is no detail.
https://www.wildsounds.com/pages/forth.shtml
It's odd, even the publisher, Bloomsbury, gives no search results for title ir ISBN which is 978-1408157367.
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Thanks for that. Even with this reference, I can't find any other link to or info about this update whatever search terms I use, including on the publisher's site. And there is no info about or pre-order of any kind on the three Amazon sites I have in my bookmarks. I really hope it is actually coming.
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