hmartin

I would have to disagree with you Jonathan. Forsman (The Raptors of Europe and the Middle East) plate 220 shows a Pallid juvenile male with an almost identical underwing to the LV bird. The main difference is less barring on the underside of the primaries on LV individual.

hmartin

Forsman plate 216 shows a juvenile Pallid with underside black primary tips and distal barring as per the LV bird. On the other hand plate 220 shows a juvenile with extensively dark primaries without distal barring, so presumably this feature is variable.

In several of his plates of juvenile Pallid, P1 is noticeably shorter than P4, as it is on this individual (Ruy has some photographs showing this).

[ Last edited by hmartin at 7/04/2014 10:14 ]

hmartin

Re. plate 216 I'd be interested to see your copy. In mine the fingers are barred for most of their length, with a dark tip rather than completely dark. How about plate 214, the fingers are completely dark in your copy?

hmartin

I'm posting a couple of Ruy's photographs from lunchtime Saturday. For various reasons there has been a delay in processing these pictures, which show the upper tail and left side of the face for the first time.

Forsman plate 221 shows the upper parts of a juvenile male Pallid Harrier starting to attain adult plumage by virtue of the replacement of barred juvenile inner tail feathers with adult grey feathers. The appearance of the upper parts of the LV individual is consistent with this plate.

Although the left side of the face in Ruy's photograph is underexposed the facial pattern suggests classic juvenile Pallid Harrier.