Update from SARBN
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Trevor Hardaker
Sep 21, 2016, 6:52:32 AM9/21/16
to SA Rare Bird News
RUFOUS-TAILED SCRUB ROBIN – our star bird remains in place this morning around the picnic sites on the eastern shore of Zeekoevlei – reported by Gideon Malherbe.
As an aside, you might be interested to know that our birding colleagues up in The Netherlands are also currently enjoying a Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, only their second ever record for the country, which was found around lunchtime yesterday on the Maasvlakte near Rotterdam. This follows only one other record in The Netherlands where a bird was present from 25-27 September 2013 at a site between Petten and Camperduin and, over the course of the 2,5 days that it was present there, it attracted over 500 twitchers. This latest bird had already drawn a couple of hundred twitchers before the light disappeared yesterday and is still there this morning with a large appreciative crowd gathered to see it…:)
The Dutch bird is of the nominate race galactotes and I have attached a photo of this bird taken by Dave van der Spoel yesterday, so that you can compare it to our bird and note the differences in the colouring, particularly the warmer tones on the back of the Dutch bird compared to ours. Hopefully, this also explains why we have arrived at the conclusion that our bird is not of the nominate race, but is rather of the syriaca race which is generally more colder-toned on the back.
Kind regards
Trevor
As an aside, you might be interested to know that our birding colleagues up in The Netherlands are also currently enjoying a Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, only their second ever record for the country, which was found around lunchtime yesterday on the Maasvlakte near Rotterdam. This follows only one other record in The Netherlands where a bird was present from 25-27 September 2013 at a site between Petten and Camperduin and, over the course of the 2,5 days that it was present there, it attracted over 500 twitchers. This latest bird had already drawn a couple of hundred twitchers before the light disappeared yesterday and is still there this morning with a large appreciative crowd gathered to see it…:)
The Dutch bird is of the nominate race galactotes and I have attached a photo of this bird taken by Dave van der Spoel yesterday, so that you can compare it to our bird and note the differences in the colouring, particularly the warmer tones on the back of the Dutch bird compared to ours. Hopefully, this also explains why we have arrived at the conclusion that our bird is not of the nominate race, but is rather of the syriaca race which is generally more colder-toned on the back.
Kind regards
Trevor
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