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Arctic Warbler

Arctic Warbler

I believe this is a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler?? It didn't call. I am still not 100% confident with my warbler IDs, so please correct me if I am wrong!!
Po Toi 1/5/2010


[ Last edited by kmatthew at 3/05/2010 00:10 ]
As The Crow Flies- a Hong Kong Birding Blog
http://www.matthewkwanbirding.blogspot.hk

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Arctic Warbler, I think Matthew (bill patterning, leg colour, amongst other features), but which taxon (species?!) borealis, xanthodryas or examinandus?

Looks quite unusually yellowish below to me. Paul Leader may have some thoughts.

Link to relevant paper extract:

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10 ... 35?journalCode=jorn

Mike Turnbull

[ Last edited by tmichael at 2/05/2010 23:06 ]

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Thanks Mike for your swift reply!! Will Pale-legged have more pinkish tint leg colour??
As The Crow Flies- a Hong Kong Birding Blog
http://www.matthewkwanbirding.blogspot.hk

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Hi Matthew,

Just a bit paler really, I think, and lacking any kind of grey tone which these seem to have I think.

Really the key (for me) is the dark patch on the distal part of the lower mandible, and the genuinely greenish-yellow overall coloration.

I saw one today that had hardly any wingbar like this one, but I didn't think it looked as yellowish as this one.

Mike

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Thanks Mike for your explanation!!
As The Crow Flies- a Hong Kong Birding Blog
http://www.matthewkwanbirding.blogspot.hk

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Pale-legged (and Sakhalin) Leaf Warblers have uniform pale pink legs, feet and claws; a good example of this can be found at:

http://orientalbirdimages.org/se ... _ID=&pagesize=1

Note also the cleaner underparts compared to Arctic.

Regarding Arctic Warbler taxonomy; it seems likely that the 3-way split proposed in three recent papers will be adopted by the IOC (now the authority on such matters which the HKBWS Records Committee follows).  This would result in borealis (northern Palearctic, Alaska) xanthrodryas (much of Japan) and examinandus (ne Hokkaido and Kamchatka) being treated as different species.
Given their distribution and wintering ranges, it seems likely that all three occur in HK.  There is a record of xanthrodryas but that is being reviewed as examinandus was not included in the original assessment (it was not even a recognised subspecies at the time!).
The elevation to species level of these three taxa is based on differences in DNA, vocalizations, and morphology.
With the vocal differences in mind, I spent time on Sunday listening to the calls and song of Arctic Warblers on Po Toi.  I heard five or six different individuals singing, and another five or six calling.  The songs matched well recordings from Japan (i.e. xanthrodryas).  The calls were interesting too, as in addition to the ‘typical’ dry dzick Arctic Warbler call, I also heard a distinctly di-syllabic gri-grik call, which is a call I had not noticed previously.
It seems likely that xanthrodryas (for which the English name Pacific Warbler has been proposed) is a common spring migrant through HK.  Examinandus should also occur, and it may well be that borealis is the commonest form in autumn.  In the meantime, much work is required to collect sound recordings of singing birds, plus careful measuring and analysis of DNA from trapped birds before we can determine whether all three (soon to be!) species do indeed occur in Hong Kong.

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