Yellow-legged or Caspian ?

[Cristian Mihai]

Pic taken on October 29th, in Bucharest.

[JanJ]

Simply by looking at the bill size and shape of it and the large eye - Ylg Cristian.

Jan

[Cristian Mihai]

Thank you, Jan.

[Ruud Altenburg]

Bill colour and shape and vermiculations above tail bar IMO point to Caspian!

[JanJ]

Bill colour and shape and vermiculations above tail bar IMO point to Caspian!

Colour and shape of the bill together with vermiculations above the tail bar would imo not be all that problematic in a 2cy michahellis.

http://www.pbase.com/thomasluiten/image/106838578

Jan

[Cristian Mihai]

What about this 3cy bird?

http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php ... 1288547525

[lou bertalan]

What about this 3cy bird?

http://www.birdforum.net/attachment.php ... 1288547525

hi cristian,

the original bird is clearly a 2cy michahellis, by bill shape, tapering tail band and especially by lack of a pale tongue on base of p10 (all dark p10 underside is rel. rare in 2nd cycle (ponticus) caspian).

the second - as i wrote on BF got to be a 3cy cachi albeit one with very limited mirror developement (no p9 mirror, rel. small p10 mirror for a 3rd cycle cachi) because of the long ventral p10 tongue, in dimension approaching the maximum of an adult micha. one could argue that it is a retarded 4cy (4th cycle) micha due to large apical spots on p5-7 and no mark on p4 but i have found that in 3rd cycles this is a pretty variable character for both sp.
black in tail, dark iris and head striation rather point towards a 3rd cycle cachinnans in my eyes.

cheers,

lou

[Ies Meulmeester]

the second - as i wrote on BF got to be a 3cy cachi albeit one with very limited mirror developement (no p9 mirror, rel. small p10 mirror for a 3rd cycle cachi) because of the long ventral p10 tongue

Yes, but the p10 tongue that's the question! I think that this tongue is not visible, because the feather/p10 is bent downwards. By the pointer you see the tongue of p9. Difficult one, I also think it's a 3cy cachinnans but from this only picture I wouldn't certain exclude a small female type michahellis...

Ies

[WolfgangSchweighofer]

In difficult cases I use always bill proportions (lenghth : depth). These are strongly different in these 2 taxa.
Measured bill proportions (and also bill coloration) of this bird are leading me definitely to YLG!

Wolfgang

[lou bertalan]

the second - as i wrote on BF got to be a 3cy cachi albeit one with very limited mirror developement (no p9 mirror, rel. small p10 mirror for a 3rd cycle cachi) because of the long ventral p10 tongue

Yes, but the p10 tongue that's the question! I think that this tongue is not visible, because the feather/p10 is bent downwards. By the pointer you see the tongue of p9. Difficult one, I also think it's a 3cy cachinnans but from this only picture I wouldn't certain exclude a small female type michahellis...

Ies

true, ies, i haven't counted correctly. this indeed leaves the option open for a 3rd cycle michahellis!
as for the bill, wolfgang, usually it works, micha bill being higher, shorter and blunter tipped but exceptions aren't rare at all...even the seemingly "swollen" distal part of the bill isn't an exclusion feature of caspian.