Should be michahellis but...

[Theo Muusse]

I never make jokes!
I knew about the Poland mixes.
Here is another speculation with back-up: what is wrong for a pure heuglini?

Theo

[JanJ]

I never make jokes!
I knew about the Poland mixes.
Here is another speculation with back-up: what is wrong for a pure heuglini?

Theo

Well - what´s wrong with a pure heuglini? We would never know that of course. However, the downfall for the eventual heuglini at this time of year would not necessarily be due to moult score (or lack of cachinnans jizz). I like Ruud's idea - from a Russian colony somewhere suitable.
Anyway perhaps more likely a LBBG, plumage fits well in all respects -the problem seems mainly to be a jizz one.

Apart from scapular pattern and a certain structure - this LBBG come rather close regarding pattern:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wpfoS655UiU/T ... G_7208.JPG

Jan

[vuelvepiedras]

More pics of this odd bird.

ID5.jpg (241.75KiB)Viewed 4565 times

Sin título-1 copia.jpg (84.38KiB)Viewed 4565 times

[Ruud Altenburg]

Reply from Grzegorz:

Hi Gents,
yes, at least one pair Heuglin's fem x probable hybrid Caspian x sth male produced two chicks in 2009 that survived until 2 weeks old (later not monitored). This was in Ivanovo (E from Moscow). No other cases known from there, but we found few more apparent pairs Caspian x Heuglin's this year in colonies further SE. Heuglin's breeds much further south in Russia than anyone expected, and in most cases there are single birds in colonies dominated by Caspian (at least south of Tatarstan). They must pair mostly with Caspian, and the presence of adult breeding intermediates indicates that mixed breeding goes on. In general, I believe that such cases in Russia are much more common than it is known and just the lack of research is responsible for this gap in our knowledge.
The Spanish bird looks very Caspian-like, but the dark underwing... I cannot see exactly why don't you like 'dark' scapulars, but the variation in Caspian is rather wide, with some 1st birds having new scaps almost wholly dark. This doesn't have to indicate LBBG in my opinion.
The Russian bird recovered in Spain was ringed in Bolshoye Boloto, Ivanovo district, Russia, 56.30'N, 42.15'E as a chick on 8.06.2008 and was recovered in Vilanova i la Geltru, Catalonia, Spain, 41.13'N, 01.44'E on 8 and 26.01.2009. The green ring 96P3 was read carefully in both cases, but the pics taken are rather poor (attached just to your knowledge as I don't have permission from the observers to share them). This bird was reported as michahellis.
As Michal Rycak wrote on the forum, there are few pale LBBGs (perhaps mostly graellsii) breeding along middle Vistula in Poland each year; at least one of them was paired with Caspian. Whether they produce young is generally unknown to me, but supposingly yes, given that there must be more such cases which simply go undetected (even in central Europe...). Therefore, it is perhaps unnecessary to search for explanation of such birds as the Spanish one so far east.
best,
Greg

[JanJ]

Interesting info from Grzegorz, thanks (also to Ruud), for that!
And yes, why not heuglini x cachinnans , even if I didn´t grasp this initially due to different breeding distribution.

Jan