Problems with ID

Saw and managed to photograph at a great distance this bird last weekend - it has been variously suggested that it is probably a buzzard but as yet no conclusion as to the species has been reached - any suggestions would be welcome howardk@batelco.com.bh

sorry for bad photos but in the originals the bird is not much that a dot

During the Eid break (Nov 29th) I spent some time at the chicken farm at Hamalah clicking away at most things that moved I managed to get a few good pics see my obs pages for them ( http://www.hawar-islands.com/blog/index.php )- but as I was sorting through what I thought would be left over garbage and destined for the recycle bin I had a closer look at what I had discounted as distant shots of a Skylark - having got some good closeups of one later I gave this sequence no thought until last night. Close scrutiny and comparison with the Skylark pics made me look a bit closer - didn't look QUITE right for Skylark it had what appeared to be a the bold supercilium meeting at the nape typical a little research revealed for Wood Lark - I have never seen a Wood Lark but we do have 3 very old records - the last from 1970(C Griffiths) hence my caution. WOULD BE GRATEFUL therefor if anybody familiar with this species could pass some comments and contact me at howardk@batelco.com.bh It's probably a Sky Lark but still would like to hear some independent comments-have discounted Lesser Short toed dem toes are just toooo long and even Oriental gulgula they have buff fringes to wings and tail not clean white as on this bird.
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Not sure what this one is but there were two or three of them in with the Indian Silverbills, possibly a Chestnut Munia

ID - Confirmed

Seen this last weekend in an acacia tree - pic one the original taken with full zoom on my 500mm lens and pic two cut out from the same of the bird in question. The bird was seen across a wide expanse of cultivated land and in my rent a wreck totally inaccessible unless I wanted to spend a few hours digging it out. Any ideas most appreciated.

Well struck out - this one will remain UNKOWN but its either a Flycatcher or at the outside a Warbler!!

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Greater and Lesser Sand Plovers - this is a compiled photo below

Separating Lesser Sandplover from Greater can be problematic ESPECIALLY when dealing with a single bird- for me I use this simple rule one that provides a BASIC guide to ID for all ssp of both species. This works well on a square on photo

This is not foolproof

It involves working out the distance between the back of the eye to the foremost feathering where it joins the upper mandible compared to the distance on to the end of the bill.

For Greater Sandplover the ratio is almost equal - distance eye to bill same as bill length - bill has a dagger like tip
*plus nail is less prominent but almost half bill length and tip is pointed

For Lesser Sandplover the bill length is always much shorter
*plus bill is more robust and nail is more prominent but it is only around one third bill length - bill has a blunter tip

Little tern back with Saunders's pasted into picture in front

While posting on Birdforum http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=129001 this response from Laurent (l_raty) jumped out as being the best clue to ID for our own Saunder's Little Tern complex - I have pasted it here as I think it too important to loose.

Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: belgium

Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard King View Post
[...] and there is considerable debate as to if the rule two Black primaries for Little over four for Saunder's holds true [...]

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I'm not familiar with Saunders's at all, so won't attempt an identification. But I would not expect this type of character to remain valid throughout the year.

Contrasts in a tern's hand are typically moult contrasts - the paler grey feathers are fresher, the darker black/blackish feathers are older. The moult of Little Tern is rather complicated - but I think you just can't understand the contrasts you will see in the birds' wings without a basic understanding of what is going on in these wings. The primary moult happens sequentially, in 'series' that start with the innermost primary and run towards the outermost. But these birds, unlike many others, do not 'just' replace all of their primaries once. When a series reaches the mid-/outer hand, a new series is normally started in the inner hand. And so on, in a process that stops only at the approach of the breeding season. Usually three such series are started between two breeding seasons. The first starts with the innermost primaries in (late) summer; this series runs through the entire hand, and gets completed with the outermost primaries being replaced around Dec-Jan. Before this (Oct-Dec), a second series starts in the inner hand. When this second series reaches the mid-hand (Feb-Mar), a third series starts again in the inner hand. These second and third series do not get completed, though, (i.e., they never reach the outermost primaries) because the moult process is arrested completely just before breeding.

During breeding, the birds have primaries that have been renewed through the first, second and third moult series of the previous non-breeding season. The outermost 1-3 feathers have been renewed only once during the previous winter (first series, the only one that reaches completion), and date back from Dec-Jan. The median primaries have been renewed twice (first, then second series); the inner primaries have been renewed thrice (first, then second, then third series); these all date back from late winter/early spring. At this point, the outermost 1-3 primaries are several months older than the rest of the wing and are going to look very much darker.

(The main difference between Saunders's and Little, here, is thought to be that Saunders's moults globally later: when the breeding season approaches, their moult is less advanced, and when this moult gets arrested, the number of outer primaries that have not been renewed a second time is larger.)

During summer and autumn, though, the feathers that were fresh and pale in spring are progressively going to turn dark as they get older, and the contrast that was so obvious in spring will fade out little by little. Then, the first moult series will start and pale new feathers will be regrown in the inner hand. This means that on a late autumn Little, you could perfectly see 4 dark outer primaries contrasting against a paler inner hand.

On a mid-winter bird that just completed its first moult series entirely, whatever the species, the outermost primaries will be fresh, thus grey, and you'll see nearly no contrast at all.

Laurent -