Just to echo thoughts on Grey-headed Kingfisher races (or indeed any identifiable migratory races of any of our birds).Our Atlas was not set up to record races so several interesting records of pallidiventris have nowhere to go and I'm not sure what to do about them. I rarely use i-nat but yes it would make a suitable depository for images such as this one, in my garden for a few hours 9th April 2019.NeilNeil BakerTanzania Bird AtlasP.O. Box 396, Iringa, TanzaniaMobile: +255 753-513603WhatsApp +44 7538 326965check out the Birding Tanzania FaceBook groupOn Friday, 25 October 2019, 10:34:58 GMT+3, Brian Finch birdfinch@gmail.com [kenyabirdsnet] <kenyabirdsnet-noreply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:Thanks Colin,
All so true, there are most certainly heaps of images of Grey-headed
Kingfishers out there, and identifiable to race. It would be
interesting to see if we can see patterns in their presence by race,
it may be that these movements are far more complex than we imagine,
even your hyacinthina which is assumed resident may be more
interesting than that!
Did get to the Madagascar Pochards, but not for the faint-hearted!
Best for now
Brian
On 10/24/19, Colin Jackson <colin.jackson@arocha.org> wrote:
> Thanks, Brian. Hope the time in Madagascar was good! Really interesting
> about the woodpecker...! Always something new to discover out there...
>
> Definitely much more to be teased out of Grey-headed movements and
> occurrence. Not enough birders are aware of the different races so we
> mostly miss that information. Having said that, with more and more
> people photographing birds, we should be able to start to pick up
> patterns from analysis of those images. Another reason for encouraging
> birders to upload to the Virtual Museum / iNaturalist which is a
> permanent record for future reference.
>
> Colin
>
> On 24/10/2019 12:26, Brian Finch wrote:
>> Fantastic Colin,
>> I have been away in Mad for just over the last six weeks, but the
>> (Golden-tailed Woodpecker just arrived in our Acacia... ten weeks now
>> and it's still a race not officially recorded in Kenya (suahelica),
>> interest in the distributions of the Grey-headed and Mangrove
>> Kingfishers hasn't waned. No sign of our semicaerulea anymore although
>> still around when I left. This confirmation of migrant only status to
>> Mangrove K in Kenya should be of interest to our southern friends as
>> well as Kenyan birders, and many thanks to David Clarence for
>> extrapolating the data from Kenya Bird Mapping,
>> Best for now
>> Brian
>>
>> On 10/24/19, Colin Jackson <colin.jackson@arocha.org> wrote:
>>> Dear Don / Brian,
>>>
>>> It's a wee while since this conversation but I had promised I would
>>> share the plot of Mangrove Kingfisher phenology from records submitted
>>> to the African Bird Atlas Project (i.e. for us the Kenya Bird Map).
>>> These were extracted and plotted by David Clarance who has produced some
>>> excellent resources for anyone with a little bit of R knowledge to be
>>> able to download the data for any species / area and look at them.
>>>
>>> The first plot is of all records of Mangrove Kingfisher for the coast
>>> with a Loess smoothing function applied. The second shows the whole data
>>> set (red) against north coast records (green) and south coast (blue).
>>>
>>> There is no doubt at all that the Mangrove Kingfisher is strongly
>>> migratory in Kenya - and to answer your question about territories,
>>> Brian, yes, they definitely do hold territory on the non-breeding
>>> grounds on the coast. We have had a bird that was always at our compost
>>> heap and while s/he has disappeared this year, I have another bird which
>>> has been calling regularly from the same spot elsewhere on the Watamu
>>> peninsula.
>>>
>>> I would echo your sentiments about the validity of the apparently
>>> relatively many records in Dec-Feb - for sure there will be a few (and
>>> it would be very interesting to consider if these are indeed Somali
>>> birds wandering down to us), but it is clear that this is an
>>> Afrotropical migrant to the coast.
>>>
>>> Colin
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 05/09/2019 23:37, Brian Finch wrote:
>>>> Hi Colin,
>>>> I'm in Mad. at present and for next five weeks but wifi tonight!
>>>> I wanted to thank you for all your very interesting latest input. The
>>>> dates on that bird retrapped 13 times, do they suggest a double
>>>> passage? It could help us learn a lot. In fact all the retrap details
>>>> contribute to the bigger picture. Do any individuals stake out a
>>>> non-breeding territory along the Watamu coast or are all on the move
>>>> to get elsewhere?
>>>> It would be very nice to see a map of dated distributions from atlas
>>>> data, I am pretty confident that it will confirm what we are learning
>>>> about it being a migrant late March-early Dec but records outside of
>>>> this period are the exception whilst any breeding records are
>>>> exceptional!
>>>> Best for now
>>>> Brian
>>>>
>>> --
>>> -----------------------
>>> Colin Jackson
>>> A Rocha Kenya
>>> e: colin.jackson@arocha.org
>>> t: +254 (0)722 842366
>>>
>>>
> --
> -----------------------
> Colin Jackson
> A Rocha Kenya
> e: colin.jackson@arocha.org
> t: +254 (0)722 842366
>
>