LBJ Rice fields on the Rio Arade north of Portimão Portugal yesterday (1 Viewer)

[buck mulligan]

Hello everyone

after a wonderful week in the Algarve...

we had great difficulty with a Little Brown Job (LBJ)



in the rice fields on the Rio Arade north of Portimão - the rice had been harvested in parts of the field with the remaining stubble much higher than wheat

Exact location : Arrozal Nossa Senhora do Rosário 37.16918440670148, -8.48526169129775

there was a bird that drove us crazy


we never saw it well but over a couple of hours and with lots of fleeting sightings we still had difficulties resuming what we had seen

we observed

very gregarious behaviour -constantly forming and reforming loose flocks with maybe a hundred present in the biggest flock
the birds would move around and then just disappear when they landed in the fields of rice stubble

rapid flight with very rapid wing beats
lots of call /whistles (too much wind for my telephone to record with BirdNet)

some, very few, seemed to land, very briefly, on a disused building but we never saw them perched on the rice stalks


Our on-site notes were

"Finch like"

Larger / heavier than e.g. Yellowhammer,


Grey / brown head
heavy grey / white bill
pale brown upper-parts
some white in the wing (bars ?)
and white (external ?) rectrices too ?


We just had great difficulty in describing these birds

We thought " Munia" but no with distinguishing criteria

No red beak etc. and we saw Munia perch on the rice stalks

After looking this up we thought maybe immatures., but would there be so many ?



Scaly-breasted Munia -Lonchura punctulata
Common Waxbill -Estrilda astrild

are present on the site and seen but they were identifiable even in this poor photo

your help please

Buck

PS


A big thank you to JLRamos who gave us the spot and lots of other very helpful ideas in the area

On the spot we had Osprey, Caspian Tern, Bluethroat, Jack Snipe and copulating Marsh Harriers

 

[THE_FERN]

yellow-crowned bishop ?

 

[buck mulligan]

thanks for this
but we saw no clear supercillium

 

[connorco]

Are Scaly-breasted Munia established in Portugal? Seems like a good option but I don't really know the introduced species situation in the country.

 

[buck mulligan]

Yes
Scaly Breasted Munia well established in the Algarve

 

[fdokykcu]

Could be Black-Headed Weaver inmature/female? I get some vibes for it, shape and jizz, there also behaved in the same way at the Guadalquivir river near Sevilla where I saw them

 

[Butty]

Impossible to identify on these data. Nothing to stop them being one (or more) of the 'regular' buntings or finches.

 

[buck mulligan]

Could be Black-Headed Weaver inmature/female? I get some vibes for it, shape and jizz, there also behaved in the same way at the Guadalquivir river near Sevilla where I saw them

Thanks for this
I hoped for someone that had a a similar experience👍
afaik there are no Black headed weavers in the area but it is not a busy spot The few locals were saw ( 1km from the site) did not understand what we were up to in the rice fields😎

 

[fdokykcu]

Thanks for this
I hoped for someone that had a a similar experience👍
afaik there are no Black headed weavers in the area but it is not a busy spot The few locals were saw ( 1km from the site) did not understand what we were up to in the rice fields😎

For me the main problem at that time was that I didn't have any references to check in the field (the species was not in my Svensson). The most striking field character for me was the very clear iris (see for instance ML74668411 Black-headed Weaver Macaulay Library). After returning home I could clinch the ID as I took enough good photos.

I am not talking at all about identifying the species from the OP photo, but from what you could have seen in the field.

As you can check from this eBird distribution map, you can expect it to be in the area.

 

[buck mulligan]

Great thanksI

I wasn't clear inthe first post the bird in the photo is the Waxbill


which were present in small numbers but st least they stayed still long enough for us to spot the bill colour etc.


We didn't see any distinctive features on the "mystery" bird 😞


Cheers

 

[Earnest lad]

I saw online a pic of immature Scaly-breasted Munia (attached) and I thought it might seem similar to your bird.
Does anyone know whether the closely-related Indian Silverbill is present in Portugal please.

 

[buck mulligan]

thanks for this

Yes we had found similar images

A friend from SE Asia thinks that the behavior is "about right" but doesn't like that we never saw them on the stalks...


We had a great day in the rice fields so we can let this on go


Having said that ...

I spent an other hour on the www

I think it is Scaly Breasted Munia though the Indian Silver-bill looks a better fit with our notes (White in the rectrices )
But I havent been able to find any records in Portugal

Ah the joys of birding

 

[Earnest lad]

thanks for this

Yes we had found similar images

A friend from SE Asia thinks that the behavior is "about right" but doesn't like that we never saw them on the stalks...


We had a great day in the rice fields so we can let this on go


Having said that ...

I spent an other hour on the www

I think it is Scaly Breasted Munia though the Indian Silver-bill looks a better fit with our notes (White in the rectrices )
But I havent been able to find any records in Portugal

Ah the joys of birding

Am I mistaken thinking in your photo, looking at the underparts, near the vent, can one just about make out the beginnings of the "scales" developing (as is the case with the photo above I posted from the web)?

 

[Butty]

Why this obsession with exotics? The photo in the original post is not the subject of the OP's ID query - and there is no particular reason to think that the birds s/he is asking about are exotics.

 

[buck mulligan]

Why this obsession with exotics? The photo in the original post is not the subject of the OP's ID query - and there is no particular reason to think that the birds s/he is asking about are exotics.

Hello

The behaviour I ,so poorly, described seems to me to be "exotic" and there were several exotics observed even photographed
My personal photographer was there for the raptors and so had his/her longest lens hence the poor image



thanks to wonderful community here I am now leaning heavily toward


Euodice cantans/ African Siver-Bill

This is a bird known to be in the area and best fits what we saw in the field

We have had the chance to see these birds in Burkina where that are much easier to identify -less movement

Hth

Have fun

ps thanks for the datum/data 👍

 

[Butty]

Euodice cantans/ African Siver-Bill
This is a bird known to be in the area and best fits what we saw in the field

I don't see it - and they don't have white in wing or tail. Why not European finches or buntings?

 

[buck mulligan]

Er....

some white in the wing (bars ?)
and white (external ?) rectrices too


like this

Capucin bec-d'argent - Euodice cantans

Capucin bec-d'argent . photo de Marie-Andrée et Thierry Bécret. Ref:thbe25159

www.oiseaux.net

Hth

 

[Butty]

some white in the wing (bars ?)
and white (external ?) rectrices too

That's no white in the wing, no white in the tail, and white undertail-coverts.