Karoo Chat (2 Viewers)

[L'argonnais]

Hello,

enormous crop which remains not that bad of a bird seen last mont in Namibia ; closed to the "White lady" , in Brandberg.

I have spent some time searching in all the species of "chats" and similar without any success. I don t find any with the clear difference between head and body like "mine"

No result neither with a tool of identification by picture.

In a third step, I use eBird and focus on the species of my "Target Species" of the site White Lady Rock Art ; my bird is supposed to be in that list ; not 100 % sure; only 29 list have been submitted.
if my bird is in the list , it could be a Karoo Chat.
but I m absolutely not sure ; I would appreciate any help in that identification.

JR

 

[delia todd]

Did you look in Opus? What do you think of this one: Karoo Chat - BirdForum Opus (click on the picture for a larger image).

I hope others think you are correct with Karoo chat, as that is the only image to come into the Gallery so far and it would be wonderful if you'd upload your one there too, as it shows a rather different angle.

 

[nartreb]

I know nothing about chats, but I went looking for similar species. Birdforum has several past threads where we had great difficulty deciding between chat species (tractrac, sicklewing, familiar, karoo... with occasional guesses of flycatchers too). I don't know which might be in range here.

I will note that this bird shows a fairly strong and fairly complete pale eye-ring, but I'm not sure what to conclude from that.

To respond to l'argonnais' remark, the clear difference between head and body is mostly explained by the fact that the bird is turning its head toward us. We see a strong contrast between the pale chin and the grey mantle. If the bird's head were turned away, we would see a more gradual blending of the mantle into the nape. But it does seem to have a pale lower cheek, which is interesting.

 

[Brian J Small]

Opus image is fine as Karoo as is posted bird.

The pale namaquensis race of Karoo is similar to the races of Tractrac in Namibia, but Karoo is structurally much longer tailed. with the primary tips falling much shorter than tail tip

B

 

[MacNara]

Sorry to interrupt, Brian, but do you have any opinion on the White-eyes in this thread from Kenya.

Southern Yellow or Pale White-eye? - Near Arusha, Tanzania

These were near Arusha NP on August 16th. A small group was seen in the canopy of medium-elevation (maybe 1500m?) forest. Thank you, Hayden

www.birdforum.net

 

[L'argonnais]

Opus image is fine as Karoo as is posted bird.

The pale namaquensis race of Karoo is similar to the races of Tractrac in Namibia, but Karoo is structurally much longer tailed. with the primary tips falling much shorter than tail tip

B

Thanks for the information ; and for you "my" brid is a Tractrac ; with a too short tail , or too long primaries; right?

JR

 

[THE_FERN]

Thanks for the information ; and for you "my" brid is a Tractrac ; with a too short tail , or too long primaries; right?

JR

No Brian said it's Karoo. This subspecies of karoo has a similar colour to tractrac which is confusing

 

[L'argonnais]

oupssss, sorry I did not understand
but my identification was correct , good news !

I have now to upload the picture in Opus

Thanks to all,

JR