From: Sidney Shema <sidneyshema@gmail.com>
Date: 2015-11-23 20:15
Subject: Re: [KENYABIRDSNET] OVAMBO SPARROWHAWK AT NAMANGA HILL
Thanks for your input Callan and Edson. Better photos would have definitely helped. I've shown the photos to a few more people and I'm awaiting feedback before deciding whether to change the record.

Best,

Sidney

On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 6:16 PM, Edson Mlamba <edmlamba@yahoo.com> wrote:
Dear Sidney,

That was a nice expedition you had. For sure the photos are not so good for identification tips but I believe there are some experts out there who can still be able to identify the bird, maybe from posture and so on... The black morph Gabar is common although not very common but there are many records. Ovambo Sparrowhawk is a lifer to many birders I believe. I wish you had good photos for identification definitely it will be a good record.

All the best, enjoy birding.

Edson
 



On Saturday, November 21, 2015 10:23 AM, "'Birding Africa (Callan Cohen)' callanafrica@gmail.com [kenyabirdsnet]" <kenyabirdsnet-noreply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
Hi Sidney,

These dark accipiters are tricky but I'd still go with Gabar on this one. Ovambo has a bit of a different jizz, with much more prominent bulky tail and a smaller head relative to the body and less of a "neck" than Gabar.

all the best

Callan





_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr Callan Cohen callan@birdingafrica.com +27 83 256 0491      

Director  
Birdwatch magazine voted Birding Africa as one of the top 5 most recommended bird tour companies in the world

Research Associate
Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town http://www.fitzpatrick.uct.ac.za/fitz/staff/research/cohen/
_____________________________________________________________________________________________




On 20 Nov 2015, at 7:24 PM, Sidney Shema sidneyshema@gmail.com [kenyabirdsnet] wrote:

 

Greeting all,

Last Thursday (12th Nov) while at Namanga Hill on a Kenya Bird Map expedition, we encountered a black Accipiter that gave us a bit of a hard time to ID. It was clearly a dark morph of something..
Too small to be Great Sparrowhawk plus it had no white on the throat. I don't think it was a Gabar as it had no white on the upper tail coverts in flight (though I'm not sure if the dark morph of the species should have the white). Plus it seemed a bit large for a Gabar. The cere was yellowish and legs yellowish-orange so that further rules out the Gabar. The orange of the legs seemed too much for African Goshawk.

None of us in the group got a good look at the eyes. A strange thing about it was that it had a few white spots in the closed right wing. Maybe not fully adult? It didn't let us get close enough for me to get a good photo with my small camera. In the end we recorded it as Ovambo Sparrowhawk, though still with a little doubt due to the rarity of the species in Kenya. We never saw the white 'arrowhead' marks in the tail, probably due to the not so good view we got of it.The Zimmerman et al. guidebook says that among the most recent reliable records of the species are from near Namanga so our location seemed appropriate. We were also in a wooded habitat so that's also appropriate for Ovambo. By elimination and the evidence at hand, I can see no other species that fits. 
I've attached the poor quality photos that I managed to get before the bird took off in case someone might notice something significant.

Regards,

Sidney

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