Checklist S151151461

Sharing links

Main details

Additional details

People

Owner Dave Andrews

Effort

Protocol:  Historical

Observations

  1. Number observed:  1

    Media

  2. Ortolan/Cretzschmar's Bunting

    Number observed:  1

    Details

    Bird most likely of this species but possibility of cretzschmars not ruled out. some features meeting the latter.

    Description:
    Having just had poor views of a very elusive Radde’s Warbler in Holkham Pines myself and Phil Saunders continued west into the dunes at Burnham Overy. We split up and worked the scrubby area immediately west of the pines. As I reached the top area of the tallest dunes, from very close to me flushed a medium sized pallid-coloured bunting with white outer tail feathers. The bird immediate got my interest and thankfully it dropped just a few metres below, though out of site. As I came over the brow of the dune I could see a bird sat up on a bush and raised my bins. At this point I was completely confused, I saw before me a very pale bunting with a pale bill and to be honest it was like nothing I’ve seen before (see photo 1). I shouted to Phil who wasn’t far away and he was quickly with me. Immediately thoughts of Grey-necked Bunting and Cretzschmar’s Bunting came to mind though with neither of us having experience of either of these we contacted friends and got them to send us photos of Collins Bird Guide and Advanced ID Guide. I got some reasonable photos and we were immediately able to rule out Grey-necked from the tertial patterning. Therefore it was either a very strange Ortolan bunting or a Cretzchmar’s.
    I tweeted out the photos as an Ortolan (or something rarer) in case other birders were nearby. We also found one other birder in the dunes. We had reasonably close views and saw it well for 30 minutes before it flew into the dunes and we could no longer find it. I was able to obtain a range of photos and have circulated them around for advice. Included in the description are email comments received.

    Description
    Age: 1CY
    Plumage:
    General: Overall pallid in colour with some rufous tones in the tertials, lesser coverts and some mantle feathers. The tertial patterning was that of Ortolan & Cretzschmars and ruled out Grey-necked Bunting. There is a slightly paler supercilium which is a pro-Ortolan feature though there are several pro-Cretzschmar’s features also (see below)
    Rump: The bird appeared in flight to have a slightly warm in colour, unstreaked rump. This can be seen in photo 2.
    Tail Pattern: the one photo I have (photo 6) of the tail appears to show the pattern of Cretzchmar’s Bunting rather than Ortolan when compared to the illustration in Svennsons Identification Guide to European Passerines.
    Eye-ring: White
    Bill: pale pink in colour with a slightly darker upper mandible. The structure of the bill is said to be slightly weaker in Cretzchmars compared to Ortolan. In the many images of Ortolans I have looked at most tend to have a more bulbous lower mandible compared to this bird. Though again this does not seem to be 100% consistant.
    Call: the bird was heard to call several times, we listened to xeno-canto recordings while in the field though found it difficult to distinguish as there sounded to be some cross over depending on the recording.

    Information received:
    José Luis Copete writes -
    “I've been ringing Ortolans Buntings for a research project during the last 4 years, and most important,
    I've been checking the identification, ageing and sexing of all pictures of the forthcoming Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds (Shirihai & Svensson, Bloomsbury). During that job I learnt quite a lot regarding id of some age/sex plumages for a good proportion of the WP species.
    The best character I’ve used in the hand in the species for ageing is the primary coverts shape, and pattern of colour on the outer web of those feathers. However in the images is not safe to use this. I compared the GCs with a set of own pictures and I agree with Per Alstrum, they look juvenile rather than very fresh moulted. So, your bird is a first-winter. The shape of the outer rectrix, as shown on the image taking flight, is not entirely safe. Moreover the central rectrices are showing a rather pointed tip.
    The buntings in autumn are one of the challenging groups. We spent many hours discussing identification of images of moulted birds in autumn with Hadoram Shirihai. After such an exercise, I guess the structural features are more times of more help that discussing subtle characters as the colour of the eye-ring or the malar stripe (btw, I do not think this character is useful to separate Cretzschmar's from Ortolan, as stated on the Macmillan of Middle East for the 1st-W).
    Your bird shows two key characters pointing towards different options: the primary projection, showing two primaries, very clearly, is suggesting it's an Ortolan; however the spacing between tertials is showing the rather normal feature for a Cretzchmar's, a bigger step between the smaller tertial and the middle, and a rather shorter between the middle and the T1, the first one touching the secondaries.
    I attach some image of our Ortolans, to show you what I said about the spacing in tertials. It's very equal in Ortolan. However in caesia the big step between the smaller (inner) tertial and the second one is quite consistent. In my opinion, a good character.
    The bill structure has been described as slightly weaker in Cretzchmar's. I cannot make a firm opinion about this looking at these images. I attach to you some of our marked birds to show an average bill of Ortolan in western Europe. Maybe your pictures shows an slightly weaker bill?
    So, your bird it could arguably be an Ortolan. But I'm not 100% sure about the subject, after lengthy discussions about it with some partners of the teams who checked the ids, ageing and sexing of the pictures in HWPB, and with Hadoram Shirihai. I find this one of the big challenges for the European birder in autumn.

Media powered by Macaulay Library