Passerine in EVOA, Portugal (1 Viewer)

[CoffeeBird]

Seen at EVOA, the Tagus Estuary nature preserve, in Portugal, on April 12th. Half-hidden, and hoping it isn't a House Sparrow. Merlin has identified it as a Common Chiffchaff, which would be a bit improbable there. Sorry it's a bit out-of-focus as well as half-hidden.

 

[Alexander Stöhr]

Hello,

its a worn/poor state of plumage Zitting Cisticola imo. Please note

• strong dark bubblegum pinkish red legs and feet (just within variation for a slightly unusual Willow Warbler, but bad for Chiffchaff or Western Bonellis Warbler)
• good eye-ring with an open face just visible
• spikey bill, impression of a weak Acrocephalus bill
• jizz/gut feeling wrong for a Sedge Warbler, mainly by smooth yellowish colours and leg colour.

 

[Bewick]

Certainly not a house sparrow and doesn't look like a phylloscopus to me, seems good for a zitting cisticola, has correct head patterning and the bill shape, (edit-) though patterning on the mantle and coverts is not discernible. Not a Cetti's, wrong colouration and structure.

 

[Valéry Schollaert]

Definitely a cisticola indeed.

 

[CoffeeBird]

Thanks, everyone!

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Looks more like a Grasshopper Warbler to me, eg brown back streaked darker brown rather than buffish streaked blackish, tail looks too long, face pattern not quite right either I find ZC to look more open faced and dark capped than this.

 

[Butty]

tail looks too long

Zitting cisticola (how I have to grit my teeth to type that name in a European context) is a stumpy short-tailed thing. This isn't. In my opinion.

 

[Harrybongo]

I'm Zitting on the fence, on this one! ☺

 

[Valéry Schollaert]

Looks more like a Grasshopper Warbler to me, eg brown back streaked darker brown rather than buffish streaked blackish, tail looks too long, face pattern not quite right either I find ZC to look more open faced and dark capped than this.

I'm afraid the small undertails excludes all Locustella. Birds on blurred photos often look longer-tailed.

 

[Butty]

open face just visible

I agree.

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Yep, I confess it's not at all close to such Cisticolas as I have seen but I must be wrong on this one. More experience required!

 

[Southern Viking]

Yep, I confess it's not at all close to such Cisticolas as I have seen but I must be wrong on this one. More experience required!

To be fair, everything else about it is classic Fan-tailed Warbler (someone had to say it!), but I'm with you in that it's long tailed appearance in these photos threw me too for a while into racking my brain for anything else that would fit.

 

[SimonLS]

Looks like a leaf in front of the bird is giving the long tailed appearance.

 

[Butty]

Looks like a leaf in front of the bird is giving the long tailed appearance.

By comparing the two photos, one can see that that isn't the case. In my opinion.

Birds on blurred photos often look longer-tailed.

This is not an effect that applies in general or in this particular case. In my opinion. In this case, the blurring is caused by the limits of lens resolution (rather than by focus- or motion-blur) and any such effect on perceived tail-length is, at greatest, trivial - in my opinion.
Far more relevant, I feel, is the odd (to me, often inexplicable) but common appearance of birds' tails (in photos) to look markedly longer than one's mental image of how they 'ought' to look. I see numerous/regular examples in this forum of people expressing a view that suchnsuch's tail is 'too long' even when the ID isn't in doubt (interestingly, it seems normally to be 'too long' rather than 'too short' - rather in the same way that lone birds whose size in the field is wrongly assessed are nearly always far bigger than reality rather than far smaller). This tail-length thing seems to be an oddity of (mis)perception to which we are all prone.

 

[kuzeycem]

Surely a Zitting. Grasshopper W would have fuller undertail coverts and different head structure.

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Far more relevant, I feel, is the odd (to me, often inexplicable) but common appearance of birds' tails (in photos) to look markedly longer than one's mental image of how they 'ought' to


This tail-length thing seems to be an oddity of (mis)perception to which we are all prone.

Not something that had ever struck me before but I reckon you're onto something there. I will try and be more aware of it in future. Instructive thread.