ID / Iran (1 Viewer)

[Shahrzad]

This image makes me doubt whether it is a Merlin or Kestrel?
I just have this photo.
Date: 17 November 2021
Point: 35.053084, 51.590978 - Varamin/ Iran

Thank you for your opinion.

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Hello,
mainly white underwing with only a few black spots, warm orangey underparts with only a few, small and black rounded spots makes this one of the male Kestrels. But which?
It has a very white, mainly unmarked underwing for a Common Kestel from Germany. But other threads here on birdforum showed similar male Common Kestrels from Asia. More, are the secondaries too dark and barred for a Lesser Kestrel?

I better stop here and wait for others, including Tom and Lou to jump in. Thank you!

 

[KenM]

It looks like a male Lesser Kestrel to me, underparts clean with minimal small spotting plus contrasting black primary tips to the underwing.

Cheers

 

[Muppit17]

It looks like a male Lesser Kestrel to me, underparts clean with minimal small spotting plus contrasting black primary tips to the underwing.

Cheers

I think it is a Eurasian Kestrel. The plain base to rectrices shows that it is an adult and the overall pattern is of an adult male.

I agree with Alex that the secondaries are too barred for Lesser Kestrel and the five rows of spotting and then barring is a typical EK pattern. I would also expect the central rectrices to elongated in LK (no sign of anything here)

I would additionally be surprised with LK in Iran in late November. Unlike the SW population, these are all migratory and although I have no details this seems very late.

 

[KenM]

I think it is a Eurasian Kestrel. The plain base to rectrices shows that it is an adult and the overall pattern is of an adult male.

I agree with Alex that the secondaries are too barred for Lesser Kestrel and the five rows of spotting and then barring is a typical EK pattern. I would also expect the central rectrices to elongated in LK (no sign of anything here)

I would additionally be surprised with LK in Iran in late November. Unlike the SW population, these are all migratory and although I have no details this seems very late.

Yes remiss of me, I’d failed to pick up the barring on the secondaries, would appear to be a clincher on adult males.
Regarding elongated central rectrices, these are variable in both Kestrels and are not set in stone, indeed I have often witnessed this to be the case with EK.
As far as overwintering in that part of the world is concerned I have absolutely no knowledge, other than LK doing so in SW Europe and parts of coastal North Africa.

Cheers