ID for juvenile warbler in Oman (1 Viewer)

[Frost1976]

Apologies for the most awful of pictures, but all I had to hand was my phone!

These were taken this week in Misfah, Oman in a green and verdant wadi. The (i presume) warbler looked young, with a very yellow chest and up to the face and then there's that bill.

Wood Warbler?

Again, apologies for those pics!

 

[andyb39]

It's a juvenile Prinia - I presume it's Delicate in this location.

 

[mummymonkey]

There's obviously been some improvement in knowledge and changes to the literature since I lived in that part of the world. Checking eBird it looks like I need to remove "graceful warbler" from my Eastern Province records and add delicate prinia!

 

[MJB]

There's obviously been some improvement in knowledge and changes to the literature since I lived in that part of the world. Checking eBird it looks like I need to remove "graceful warbler" from my Eastern Province records and add delicate prinia!

Best ask Jem Babbington on the latest info for KSA: both Graceful and Delicate Prinia occur. See Birds of Saudi Arabia
MJB

 

[Brian J Small]

More refs

https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/138/2/ukab014/6255519

The Prinias of Eastern Arabia: Graceful (P. gracilis) vs Delicate (P. lepida)

Originally posted January 4, 2022 A Taxonomic Tangle The Graceful Prinia (Prinia gracilis) is a small, brownish, long-tailed warbler of damp habits in otherwise arid environments, including in and around anthropogenic sites. Where it occurs, it's often quite abundant—nigh ubiquitous. Owing to...

www.saudibirding.com

Brian

 

[Frost1976]

It's a juvenile Prinia - I presume it's Delicate in this location.

Thank you! I didn't think Prinia what with the short tail

 

[Butty]

Photos lie. It's actually difficult to tell from these photos, but it looks as though the tail is more foreshortened than actually short. You may perhaps have suffered from trying to identify the bird from the photos when watching it in the field would have been more likely to give you the correct ID.

 

[Frost1976]

Photos lie. It's actually difficult to tell from these photos, but it looks as though the tail is more foreshortened than actually short. You may perhaps have suffered from trying to identify the bird from the photos when watching it in the field would have been more likely to give you the correct ID.

Well was watching first and then took those pics (if you can call them that!) to look up afterwards as I was stumped!

 

[Gregory Askew]

There's obviously been some improvement in knowledge and changes to the literature since I lived in that part of the world. Checking eBird it looks like I need to remove "graceful warbler" from my Eastern Province records and add delicate prinia!

Hi there. If you've got photos of prinias from your time in the EP, I'd love to see them. We suspect both Delicate (P. l. irakensis) and Graceful (P. g. hufufae) occur around the Dammam area. Strong evidence for the former but none but audio for the latter.
Cheers!

 

[Gregory Askew]

It's a juvenile Prinia - I presume it's Delicate in this location.

Yes, northern Oman will be Delicate (carpenteri) and southern Oman (Dhofar region) is Graceful (yemenensis). Lots of undeveloped desert between the two regions but surely there's a contact zone somewhere...

 

[MJB]

Hi there. If you've got photos of prinias from your time in the EP, I'd love to see them. We suspect both Delicate (P. l. irakensis) and Graceful (P. g. hufufae) occur around the Dammam area. Strong evidence for the former but none but audio for the latter.
Cheers!

Thanks, Greg, for responding! Perhaps you might post a link to your YouTube video on the subject for the elucidation of Bird Forum members?
MJB

 

[mummymonkey]

Hi there. If you've got photos of prinias from your time in the EP, I'd love to see them. We suspect both Delicate (P. l. irakensis) and Graceful (P. g. hufufae) occur around the Dammam area. Strong evidence for the former but none but audio for the latter.
Cheers!

It was 30 years ago so sadly not. Looking on Google maps the patch I birded is much drier now - 26.336306, 50.220080.
At that time 92-95 it had a decent amount of water all year and in the winter was a series of pools and reedbeds which was brilliant for waders, ducks, great black-headed gulls, harriers and the odd steppe eagle. It had fish (Aphanius sp.), amphibians, and breeding stilts. The drier part had a small colony of little terns.

The prinias (graceful warblers as I knew them) were everywhere in the reeds and their calls were constant. If I close my eyes I can hear them now. Listening to your audio samples on the excellent web page linked above I'm certain they were Prinia gracilis).

 

[andyb39]

Yes, northern Oman will be Delicate (carpenteri) and southern Oman (Dhofar region) is Graceful (yemenensis). Lots of undeveloped desert between the two regions but surely there's a contact zone somewhere...

Hi Greg. Nice to see you here!

I had to Google the location as I hadn't heard of it. It's some way from the coast but I felt it was simply too far away from Dhofar.