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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tconzemi" data-source="post: 3503993" data-attributes="member: 83449">from BBRC files:'...Irrespective of such proposals, the subspecific validity of homeyeri has been questioned, intergradation with both excubitor in the west and leucopterus in the east indicating that it may represent merely a point along a cline (Tajkova & Red’kin 2014). However, it is also possible that some ‘intergrades’ may represent the incompletely documented range of variation in homeyeri. 'and ' The identification of ‘classic’ homeyeri rests largely on the amount of white in the secondaries and spread tail but is hampered by the significant individual, age and sex-related and geographical variation both within this subspecies and within excubitor. Two broad plumage types of the latter are recognised – a darker morph with white restricted to the primaries (most prevalent in the northern part of the range and formerly given the name ‘melanopterus’) and a paler morph with white extending onto the secondaries (most prevalent in France and Germany and forrmerly given the name ‘galliae’). This latter type may approach homeyeri in appearance, as do excubitor/homeyeri intergrades. Biometrics might provide useful evidence.'this said the amount of white in the wings is typical for central european birds (mainly males),white on rump, super and shoulder is all clearly within variation of excubitor, there is a lot of white in the tail though with T5 only with a dark shaft, and now back to ID of a subspecies with a clinal change ofer thousands of km (from darker scandinavian to lighter central european birds with white bases of scondaries getting lighter to the sout-east and than even more so eastwards, imho we should forget these supspecies (as ssp galliae has already been given up for central Europe), but back to this individual it is closer to a standard central european male than to homeyeri</blockquote>

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