Dear All,
Two years ago a group of us had a trip to the Ngurumans (south Loita),
to try and prove that Brown-headed Apalis had never been in Kenya. We
were successful in this aim, but whilst there also found two birds
that I had never seen in Kenya before. Both had been lumped in with
close relatives, and both are now considered separate. These were
Black-capped Mountain Greenbul and Southern Citril. Not only had I not
seen the birds in this country, but I did not even know that either
was in Kenya. If you look in Britton you find that nigriceps is there
in the Ngurumans, its only outpost in Kenya. Back to Britton, under
African Citril there again, hypostictus in Nguruman and Chyulu Hills.
So neither bird was novel, it was all known in the past.
There is a narrow area of overlap between grey-faced brittoni and
black-faced citrinelloides race kikuyuensis. There has never been a
record of hybridisation.
What struck me about the hypostictus was that it had a small bill, the
grey-faced race familiar to us, brittoni has very different markings,
a prominent yellow supercilium and a more massive bill. (See
attached).
With the Dar bird, the reason I requested a profile of the closed bill
was to compare it and see if there is in fact variation of bill size
that could reach the proportions of brittoni. Images I have of birds
from Amani, show the same small bull as the Ngurumans. Different sized
bills would surely indicate different feeding preferences/strategies
wouldn’t they? I don’t think the last word on Citrils has been
published!
Best to all
Brian