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Can you please help me with the id of these birds?











Thanks!

jnaflwr, could you please tell us where and when you saw these birds? Without at least some further information, ID is impossible.

1-The first two appear to be Sabota Larks,
2-The third image is a little small, definately a lark....Looks like a possible Fawn-Coloured Lark (Distribution important for this to be certain)
3-Southern Grey-headed Sparrow
4-Terrestrial Brownbul


Justin

Sorry for not listing where the pictures were from. #1,2 and 4 were from Madikwe, the 3rd smaller picture was from the Kwando river area in North Botswana and the last one was from Kasane also in North Botswana.

Thanks for the help,
jnaflwr

Help please! Both taken in south-west KNP this past weekend.


There were a few of these around


Familiar chat? (Don't recall any wing-flicking. Also, think at the time I may have suspected a flycatcher, but looking at it now it looks like a Chat.)

Please help. I took this at 14:00 on 3 April in Shingwedzi camp as it posed briefly at the top of a tree. I suspect it is a Cisticola and I will stick my neck out and gues at 672 Rattling Cisticola. The original photos are very large files and unfortunately some of the detail is lost in reducing to 40kB. I have two other shots of it but this one gives possibly the best view.



And also this one seen at midday near Olifants camp near the river on the Balule road. I think it is either a juvenile Fiscal Flycatcher or a Marico Flycatcher. It posed most accommodatingly on the top of the bush and was not in the least afraid of the car. I did not see it eat anything. I see the delineation of the plumage is quite abrupt and the slight rufous wash on the chest. I have swirched the names of the files twice because I couldn't decide which of the two it was and then realised I could be wrong with both.

I must mention that I live in suburban Paarl so I long for the wide variety of lowveld birdlife here, thus going slowly through my recent KNP trip photos to identify the difficult one (difficult for me that is!) is like having the holiday all over again.

Thanks
Pete

Hi Pete,
I'd say the second bird is a Red-backed Shrike, female or juvenile

Hi Pnm,

I think the first bird may be a Juv. Wattled Starling?

Anyone else agree?

joshilewis, your birds look like Rattling Cisticola and a possible plae flycatcher (Its definately a flycatcher)...

I agree witht eh wattle starling, non-breeding possibly and a juv. red-backed shrike!

Justin

Great, thanks. I think I IDed it as a Pale Flycatcher at the time. Saw both Pale and Duskys very close together.

Thanks for the help.

It might just be me, but I don't think the cisticola looks like that in the book Why don't they show the undertail in the book (I use the Sasol)? I imagine the barred under tail is quite diagnostic?

Just a quick comment. Unless you had the most bizarre mix of habitats, this would be rather unlikely. African Dusky Flycatcher is a forest bird. In Kruger I would expect them only in the densest of riverine forest but they are anything but regular in KNP. Pale Flycatcher on the other hand prefers broadleaved woodland with grass ground cover and is seen in KNP quite readily.

As regards this specific bird I would agree that it is a Pale Flycatcher. Notice the pale eyebrow that connects the bill with the eye but terminates at the eye and the pale brown flanks. It certainly lacks just about all the important features for Dusky Flycatcher (mottled breast, black lore etc. - not to mention the habitat). What you might rather have considered (by rather a long shot though) is Ashy Flycatcher but that is also a bird more closely associated with riverine forest or dense wooded valleys and would have shown more greyish tones as opposed to the browner tones of your bird.

I'm not particularly strong at ID'ing trees but the tree in your pic looks like Rhus lancea (Justy, you're better than I am with these, so what is it?) Either way, it looks like a typical broadleaved woodland tree and the general openness of the scene suggests that this is ideal habitat for Pale Flycatcher and completely wrong habitat for either Dusky or Ashy Flycatcher.

Fair enough deefstes, thanks for pointing that all out. Guess I'll have to start using the habitat descriptions more as well in my IDs
I'll check my notes over the weekend, see if I wrote anything down.

The habitat wasn't riverine or dense, and was broad-leaved woodland (Pretoriuskop area, Gertenbach 1 I think), mostly Terminalia Sericea/Silver Cluster Leaf (the tree the flycatcher is in).

You preach it brother! And not just habitat, there's a host of other "tools" available as well. The bird's call would have been another and the habits (but you did note the lack of wing flicking so good on you )


As a matter of interest, if you didn't even post a picture and asked us "I saw a Flycatcher in a Terminalia sericea, what was it?" you'd probably have gotten a unanimous answer of "Oh, that would be a Pale Flycatcher" That's how useful habitat is. Unfortunately it's not that cut and dried with all birds but it so happens to be particularly useful for Flycatchers.

One study suggests that the 5 favourite trees for Pale Flycatcher nests are:
Ochna pulchra
Strychnos pungens
Strychnos cocculoides
Combretum apiculatum
Terminalia sericea

Will start looking at habitat more closely.
Am very aware of calls. All 4 windows and sunroof were open on every drive (unless it was raining). In part that's why I was a bit surprised that the other bird was a Rattling Cisticola, since that's one of the few calls SO and I know (learned on a bird club outing last year).

As far as I remember, we didn't hear the flycatcher calling.

I struggled a lot with some firefinches. I had the idea of starting a new thread specifically to discuss telling common species apart, like firefinches, chanting Goshawks, Fork-tailed Drongo and Black Flycatcher etc (kind of like the original Beating About the Bush book). Good idea?

I think it's a great idea but it's probably not even necessary to start a new thread, this one would do just fine. I mean, you don't have to post a picture to ask for ID help.