Thread
Print

[Oversea] Helps on ID of a bird in Yunnan

Helps on ID of a bird in Yunnan

This photo of a bird was taken in Baifaling (SW Yunnan) on roughly 2017-1-8. It resembles a Sibia but does not appear to fit any Sibia in China. Comments on its ID are welcome. This is the only photo of this bird. No more angles are available.

Photo by nicks

[ Last edited by HFCheung at 3/02/2017 13:05 ]

TOP

Dark-backed Sibia

TOP

A new record of China

TOP

Great record! And a lovely bird, as are all the Sibias.

Surely the people who make up bird names for Asian bird lists can come up with something more memorable than "Dark-backed" Sibia for a bird like this.

TOP

Surely it's a Beautiful Sibia with shadow across the forehead and back?
As The Crow Flies- a Hong Kong Birding Blog
http://www.matthewkwanbirding.blogspot.hk

TOP

In a dark-backed sibia the black seems to cover almost all of the face, and it looks a bit like beautiful sibia too.

TOP

For me, Dark-backed should be much darker above, with a different head pattern (darker crown uniform with cheeks). Also the wing pattern (pale fringes to primaries) and tail pattern look wrong for Dark-backed.

Most aspects of this bird look closest to Beautiful for me. The only real problem I think is the apparent paleness of the underparts. As Matthew suggests, that may be related to the lighting on the photo. A few online photos show Beautiful also appearing to have pale underparts, e.g.:
http://orientalbirdimages.org/se ... y_ID=&Location=
http://orientalbirdimages.org/se ... y_ID=&Location=

TOP

Thanks for comments.
To me, it does not fit Beautiful Sibia well. May be it is a new subspecies or even a new species.
Will keep our eyes open.

TOP

Thread