Lesser Crested or African Royal Tern, Dakhla, Western Sahara (1 Viewer)

[opisska]

Another installment of "question from uploading to iNat" - I already asked about this bird - https://www.birdforum.net/threads/morocco-shearwaters-tern-and-dunns-lark.337674/ - and got one response of Lesser Crested, mainly because the thread had a far more interesting topic of these tricky larks. Now a fellow iNaturalist user claims it should be African Royal - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/71631422 - and they make some pretty good points (indeed checking eBird, Lesser Crested is a big rarity in Dakhla). Would someone care to weigh in? It would be quite interesting to find out that we did actually see another target

 

[dantheman]

Another installment of "question from uploading to iNat" - I already asked about this bird - https://www.birdforum.net/threads/morocco-shearwaters-tern-and-dunns-lark.337674/ - and got one response of Lesser Crested, mainly because the thread had a far more interesting topic of these tricky larks. Now a fellow iNaturalist user claims it should be African Royal - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/71631422 - and they make some pretty good points (indeed checking eBird, Lesser Crested is a big rarity in Dakhla). Would someone care to weigh in? It would be quite interesting to find out that we did actually see another target

Well, it looks better for Royal to me at a glance.

Both do perhaps occur? - not sure that Lesser Crested is a rarity, at least we had 3 in 2011 (compared to 40 Royal) at one location in Dahkla Bay

 

[Steve Lister]

Bill colour and chunky build favour African Royal (?West African Crested now?) over Lesser Crested.

 

[opisska]

Yeah, both occur, but apparently the "royal one" (West African Crested by IOC, with a note that it should never have even been in Royal in the first place) much more often, which I had no idea about. In any case, nice to hear that you would both support that - we are getting a lifer, in WP, 4 years after the observation

 

[THE_FERN]

Bill colour and chunky build favour African Royal (?West African Crested now?) over Lesser Crested.

Think pale mantle and wings do too

 

[sicklebill]

Looks like WA Royal to me, very pale, they always look very whitish when I see them in Ghana, how nice to get a retro lifer!