Ethiopia. Northern Grey-Headed Sparrow? (1 Viewer)

[testoduro]

Debre Libanos Monastery, near Adis, summer. I first thought it was a Swainson on account of the range, but Merlin favours the option of NGHS. Apparently the two species can coexist in this particular spot. The two pictures were taken within the same minute.
Thanks in advance!

 

[AveryBartels]

According to my Birds of the Horn of Africa book, N. Grey-headed shouldn't be anywhere near Addis/Debre Libanos. I do however, note that there are plenty of reports on eBird for that species in the area. I wonder how thorough the review process is for that country though? It is appears to be an easy pair to confuse and indeed I am not experienced enough in the region (just a lone Ethiopia trip in 2019) to provide any useful feedback!

I will add that Merlin is NOT to be trusted with tricky ID pairs such as this duo, remember it is a machine and subtle field marks/shape/structure etc. are not within it's capacity.

 

[testoduro]

According to my Birds of the Horn of Africa book, N. Grey-headed shouldn't be anywhere near Addis/Debre Libanos. I do however, note that there are plenty of reports on eBird for that species in the area. I wonder how thorough the review process is for that country though? It is appears to be an easy pair to confuse and indeed I am not experienced enough in the region (just a lone Ethiopia trip in 2019) to provide any useful feedback!

I will add that Merlin is NOT to be trusted with tricky ID pairs such as this duo, remember it is a machine and subtle field marks/shape/structure etc. are not within it's capacity.

Thanks AveryBartels! I fully agree about Merlin not being very reliable, hence my query here. I find Merlin useful mainly for first quick identifications of birds in exotic regions I'm not familiar with.

It's true that both NGH and Swainson's sparrows are like two peas in a pod. The only feature I notice supporting it being a NGH is the stark contrast between its whitish belly and the grey upperparts in picture 1. I've browsed through many pictures of both species and Swainson's seems to be more uniformly gray.

And yes, although the guidebook rules out NGH in Debre Libanos, the ebird app reports the species scattered throughout all Ethiopia, with appreciable densities around Debre Libanos. The IUCN range map for NGH, however, does not include anywhere near Debre Libanos.