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Message: <blockquote data-quote="l_raty" data-source="post: 1477625" data-attributes="member: 24811">One more for comparison:<a href="http://users.skynet.be/ch-web/index_en.htm?photos/lansen005.htm" target="_blank">http://users.skynet.be/ch-web/index_en.htm?photos/lansen005.htm</a>This bird was paired to (and raised youngs at least two years in a row with) a perfectly normal female Red-backed. (Woodchat is a very rare breeder in Belgium; Lesser Grey is a major rarity.)For what it's worth, <a href="http://books.google.be/books?id=iZhKTNkpxUIC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#PPA216,M1" target="_blank">McCarthy (2006)</a> cites numerous references describing natural hybridization between Woodchat and Red-backed (and several describing cases having involved Red-backed and Lesser Grey, but this pairing could indeed probably not explain the appearance of the Italian bird). For hybridization between Lesser Grey and Woodchat, on the contrary, he only cites a single specimen "believed" to have been a hybrid. (IOW, no hybrid pairings have been described, and the existence of such hybrids is probably best regarded as hypothetical.)I keep finding the bright chestnut tones in the fringes of the wing coverts and tertials of the Maltese bird difficult to explain without the other parent having been a collurio. I'm not too sure of what I see on the Italian pictures in this regard (there are some brown/chestnut tones in the wing, but I'm not completely certain of the pattern of the feathers).The tail pattern of both birds also shows similarities to that of a Red-backed. (For the Italian bird, compare the picture showing its undertail [Luciano's post #15 above] to, e.g., <a href="http://www.fotobiota.com/i/Red-backed_Shrike_Lanius_collurio_photo_picture_image_Bulgaria_fotobiota_100.jpg" target="_blank">this picture</a>.)Laurent -</blockquote>

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