From: DON TURNER <don@originsafaris.info>

Date: 2017-02-25 16:46

Subject: Re: WHERE ARE THE GREEN WOODHOOPOES AROUND NAIROBI AND SURROUNDS?

Dear Brian;   Thank you for your reply.

i). In the recent paper in Scopus  I asked the question " Are Phoeniculus purpureus niloticus (Neumann 1903) and Phoeniculus damararensis granti (Neumann 1903) conspecific ?

ii). Certainly I feel that all evidence (including the specimen evidence) suggests that they are.

iii). If one looks at the specimen evidence of which there are a considerable number in most major museum collections:

a). Jackson had marwitzi from Kijabe, Rumuriti and Nyando Valley.

b)  Jackson had granti  from Taveta, KIbwezi and Ngomeni (Taita Dist).

c)  Jackson had niloticus from Turkwel and Baringo.

d) Van Someren had marwitzi from Kisumu, Nairobi, Simba, Mombasa, Hola (Tana River), Sokoke and Rabai

e) Van Someren had granti from Mariakani, Kutui, Simba and Archer's Post.

f) Van Someren had niloticus from Lodwar, Turkana and Turkwell.

g).  All of Ligon's birds from Naivasha and Elmenteita were marwitzi.

h). In Tring there are a few specimens of granti collected by M-Praed from the Tsavo River.

i) Los Angeles County Museum have from the Cheney Expedition specimens of :

marwitzi from Boni Forest, Witu, Bura (Tana),  Naivasha and Turkwell.

granti from Boni Forest,  Bura (Tana River) and Maralal.

j). Carnegie Museum have specimens of

marwitzi from Mombasa.

granti  from Garissa, Embu (Upper Tana River), Lali Hills.

k). Smithsonian have specimens from the Childs Frick Exped of:

marwitzi from Northern Uaso Nyiro  but with a comment from Friedmann wondering "if they may not be hybrids between marwitzi and granti"

Much of this confirms the utter confusion and uncertainty relating to museum specimens which is what I and others at Tring found when one day I laid them all out and we looked at them closely under natural sunlight, artificial light, in bright sunlight and under cloudy conditions. The conclusion at the time was that the specimen evidence of all three forms was inconclusive when assigning any to a particular subspecies.

Also you will also note several cases where both marwitzi and granti are found to have been collected from the same localities, again clearly showing the difficulty collectors had when examining birds in the hand.

Finally to be perfectly frank I would say it is impossible to racially determine any birds on photographic evidence no matter where from.

iv). The Scopus paper did not address birds known as the Black-billed Wood-hoopoe other than a comment that  "The Black-billed Wood-Hoopoe Phoeniculus somaliensis, long considered a race of the Green Wood-hoopoe, was deemed worthy of separate species status by Davidson (1976) on the grounds that the largely all-black bill is typically more slender and decurved than in either purpureus or damarensis, and indeed that longer bill does serve to distinguish it from the other two (Turner 2014). Meanwhile its status in northern Kenya border areas vis-à-vis any sympatry with either niloticus or granti remains unclear".

I hope this helps to clarify the matter.

With best wishes

Don

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