Reed Bunting subspecies ID, Iran (1 Viewer)

[ehsan]

Found this one individual among other wintering "small-billed" Reed Buntings in north-west of Iran in late January.

Is it caspia?
How can we seperate caspia from pyrrhuloides?

I have more pics if needed.

Thank you in advance

 

[Nutcracker]

E. s. pyrrhuloides should be much paler than this, going by the illustration in Byers et al. (Buntings & North American Sparrows). Difficult to find out much more - IOC lists 19 subspecies of Reed Bunting, and most of them are not illustrated by Byers.

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

Trawling through images its hard to find examples of these two 'large-billed' taxa.

I could only find this male caspia from eastern Turkey https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/204234931#_ga=2.245929092.1255962709.1582957897-477926386.1582957897 but no examples of females. Compare this male pyrrhuloides from Uzbekistan https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/92145771#_ga=2.254523272.1255962709.1582957897-477926386.1582957897
and these images of both male and female from Kazaksthan https://birds.kz/v2taxon.php?s=571&l=en

Can you post some more images Ehsan, in particular, showing the upperparts and bill at a better angle?

Grahame

 

[ehsan]

Here are two more pics that show upperparts and bill:

 

[Grahame Walbridge]

Thanks Ehsan.

Some images of caspia from Azerbaijan http://birdingaze.blogspot.com/2015/02/winter-trip-2015-first-days-gobustan.html the fem (top) looks a closer match?

Grahame

 

[ehsan]

Some images of caspia from Azerbaijan http://birdingaze.blogspot.com/2015/02/winter-trip-2015-first-days-gobustan.html the fem (top) looks a closer match?

Grahame

Many thanks Grahame for the link. That female is quite similar to my bird.

 

[aeshna5]

Certainly look similar to the couple of birds I saw in Armenia last year.