| Title |
Identification of Collared Pratincole and Oriental Pratincole - a critical review of characters |
|
| Author |
Gerald Driessens - Lars Svensson |
| Language |
English |
| Magazine |
Dutch Birding, vol. 27, no. 1, 2005
|
| Page |
1 - 35 |
Contents
|
Article introduction:
Little attention was ever paid to the identification of Oriental Pratincole [Glareola maldivarum] (hereafter maldivarum) until the most recent generation of field guides was published. Considering the fact that this species was first reported as a vagrant in Europe as recent as 1981 (Burns 1993), this is not surprising. Only a few useful field characters were described until the mid 1990s, making them easily remembered by most birders but masking the need for a more thorough survey. Following the record of a suspected [maldivarum] in the Netherlands in August 1997 and one in Sweden August-October 2001, and especially after the publication of photographs of these two individuals, some doubts arose about the quality of the criteria to separate Collared Pratincole [G pratincola] (excluding Afrotropical races) (hereafter [pratincola]) and [maldivarum] (cf Fredriksson et al 2001 ). All currently accepted Western Palearctic records of [maldivarum] are listed in table 1.
In April 1998, Gerald Driessers - who initiated this study - compared skins of pratincola and maldivarum at the British Natural History Museum (NHM) in Tring, England. The identification of this species pair appeared to be much more difficult than previously thought. GD also studied the skins at the Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum/ Naturalis (NNM) in Leiden, the Netherlands. Later, Lars Svensson examined specimens at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHM) in Paris, France, at the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet (NRM) in Stockholm, Sweden, and at the Zoologisk Museum (ZMUC) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The interesting results of these independent studies were confirmed by others, and also expanded by additional findings based on specimens (Alexander Hellquist in Tring, Klaus Mailing Olsen in Copenhagen and Curt johnsson in Stockholm, who entered a fruitful discussion on the Internet regarding primarily the Swedish bird, which was accepted as maldivarum by the Swedish rarities committee, cf Svensson 2001). The total number of specimens examined exceeds 250 for both [pratincola] and [maldivarum].
This paper is restricted to a comparison of nominate [pratincola] (which breeds from southern Europe and North Africa eastwards to Kazakhstan and Pakistan) with [maldivarum], which is monotypic. The other subspecies of [pratincola] (all from sub-Saharan Africa) are dealt with in Driessens (2005).
With a summary in Dutch: Vorkstaartplevier en Oosterse Vorkstaartplevier - een kritische beoordeling van determinatiekenmerken
Headlines:
Pratincole identification: general remarks * Field conditions * Moult and plumages * Characters of [maldivarum] (Previously published characters * Proposed 'new' characters * Supplementary characters) * Conclusions * Acknowledgements * Samenvatting * References
|
| |
Contents of this issue:
|
|
|
