Deb, to give you a chance to see what I was looking at, here is a scan of the relevant spread from the birds of India book, which can be recommended.
I am not sure why you would not make a free registration with ebird to utilize the resources. I find a lot of beneficial information there.
Niels
Thank you for the scan. I do’t know how up to date it is, but Himalayan is stated in your linked Field guide as being an ‘undescribed’ species/race more ‘closely related’ to
vulpinus (however that might gets expressed as a genotype?) and also a winter visitor to
NE India (where I have (purportedly)seen them).
What I think is worth highlighting is that the species description for Himalayan in this FG, also seems to distinguish two Himalayan Buzzard populations, one migratory and a winter visitor and one, a resident breeder that is much larger and more rufous - these latter ones are described as ‘
refectus’ (and were probably the type that I saw that were very similar to Steppes in colouration ). However, most authorities regard
refectus and
burmanicus as synonymous. (When I suggested there were two races of Himalayan Buzzard, one migratory and one sedentary, on BF on another thread the other day, someone was very quick to ‘correct me’ that this is not the case and that
refectus and
burmanicus were the same race and completely interchangeable). This Indian FG however, is not the only literature that I have seen to treat Himalayan Buzzards as of two distinct populations with a different morphology - (Which is why btw, the BF thread that I linked to earlier on the origins of
refectus/burmanicus split/merge is both interesting and a conundrum.).
Your linked guidebook seems out of date to me (if we agree current taxonomy treats
refectus as synonymous with
burmanicus ) and also shows an image description for Himalayan
burmanicus as having a pale breast band bordered by heavy streaking with distinctly light rufous tones. (Not like the OP but more like the earlier linked images of Himalayan on the OBCD link) In addition on the facing page, we have illustrated next to it, the supposedly synonymous
refectus as ,strangely, looking more like Steppe Buzzard. As for the Steppe Buzzard
vulpinus it simply says its ‘status’ is unknown - that to me suggests a big documentation gap, since we know long distant migratory Steppe Buzzards winter in the Indian subcontinent (or do we!?) - so what’s their winter range and from which populations do they come?
Anyway - This has probably become a bit of an echo chamber but some interesting buteos from oop North! 🙂
(Apart from the ‘Himalayan’ I slipped in there)
© leon berthou; Common Buzzard; Buteo buteo; Falsterbonäset--Falsterbo Horseshow area, Skåne län [SE-12], Sweden; 1 Aug 2020; Macaulay Library ML260049341
macaulaylibrary.org
© Omkar Damle; Common Buzzard; Buteo buteo; Mumbra Hills, Mumbai, Thane, Maharashtra, India; 4 Nov 2020; Macaulay Library ML277724951
macaulaylibrary.org
© leon berthou; Common Buzzard; Buteo buteo; Falsterbonäset--Falsterbo Horseshow area, Skåne län [SE-12], Sweden; 1 Aug 2020; Macaulay Library ML260049331
macaulaylibrary.org
Of course Jalid is absolutely correct in his ID - (who would dare argue! 😮) But I do wonder how the rest of us are going to get there if a/ races/ssp/sp of buteo are rarely monotypic and the literature/field observation data can’t even agree on ranges or even, when it comes to identifying them in the field, what the regionally specific populations should look like.
