Leuk stukje over de Engelse vliegenvangers van de afgelopen week uit de Birdguides-nieuwsbrief; niet alleen in Nederland wordt wel eens geklooid...
Two teasing flycatchers this week caused much
head-scratching and posed some major identification headaches. In Scotland, a
first-winter bird at Fife Ness on 14th-16th was trapped and ringed on 15th and
identified as a COLLARED FLYCATCHER. Those who travelled north must have been hugely
disappointed when the bird was re-trapped the following day, and re-identified as a
PIED FLYCATCHER. Almost as soon as news of the Collared Flycatcher in Fife appeared
on 15th, the identification of a Ficedula flycatcher at Waxham (Norfolk) began to
raise excitement levels further still, in one of the busiest rarity weeks of 2008.
Observers familiar with Collared Flycatcher thought that the Waxham bird showed
characters associated with SEMI-COLLARED FLYCATCHER (including a hint of a double
wing bar, a greyish cast to the brown-toned plumage and wholly white outer tail
feathers). A bird thought to be the same individual was still present on 16th, but
there were suggestions that the bird seen (and videoed) late in the day on 15th
wasn't the bird initially photographed by the finder. Ahhh, the old two-bird theory!
Which, by 16th, had seemingly become a three-bird theory (confirmed by studying
photographs); so, the original bird was thought not to be the bird seen later on
15th, and the bird on 16th-17th was neither of the birds from 15th. This remains one
of the toughest autumn identification challenges in Europe - and if it took two goes
to get the Fife bird right in the hand, the Norfolk bird stands no chance unless it
is trapped.