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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Penny Clarke" data-source="post: 1299552" data-attributes="member: 40022">I emailed several experts to ask their opinon but the only people kind enough to take the time to email me back were The Punkbirder team:t::t::t: Thank you very much James. I am sure they will not object to me putting their opinion on here. Here is their reply which was jointly sent to Connor and myself (I didn't realise Connor had emailed them until I read their email this evening!):"Nice pics - it's a classic in-betweener! As yourselves and others have said, it's not a typical reed - that face pattern / head shape does strongly suggest marsh, as well as the contrasty tertial/tail edges. The rustiness is within range of juv marsh in my opinion, but it doesn't look quite as yellow underneath as you'd hope for on a 'classic' marsh - particularly the whitish throat. The bill looks just a tiny bit too long/dark/narrow, although I'm sure it's within the plausible range of marsh. However, the primaries certainly look a little on the short side. Also, whilst the legs/claws look genuinely pale-ish, they would fall more into the range of reed in my opinion. Can't say anything about emarginations - the difference is so marginal it's apparently difficult to do even in the hand... So my opinion would be that whilst it 'could' be a marsh, it's not 'classic' enough to be 100% claimable... Shame it wasn't calling- a recording would have been helpful. I studied a whole load of migrant reeds on Scilly last week, and none of them produced anything like those hard sedge-like tacking calls you get from migrant marsh. All the best,James"</blockquote>

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