Non-birders: this will be boring to you.
I got a new camera on sale – I just couldn’t resist the bargain, and I don’t regret it because it is a great toy. Taking bird pictures with this camera is unbelievably easy. This morning, I took pictures of five out of the six species of wheatears I was able to find. Since wheatears are so beautiful, interesting, and difficult for me to identify, I thought I would make this blog entry a “wheatear special.” All the pictures were taken this morning on the Iraq/Kuwait border. I am trying to improve my wheatear identification skills, and if I get better pictures later I'll just switch them out with these.
ISABELLINE WHEATEAR – OENANTHE ISABELLINA
Both the male and female isabelline wheatears look just like the female northern wheatear, with some key differences:
The isabelline stands more upright, on longer legs.
Its tail is slightly shorter, with less extensive white on the outer tail feathers.
Its wing feathers are more uniformly sandy, which makes the dark alula (the tiny feather on the edge of the wing’s “wrist”) stand out more.
This is mainly a southwest Asian species.
NORTHERN WHEATEAR – OENANTHE OENANTHE
I got a new camera on sale – I just couldn’t resist the bargain, and I don’t regret it because it is a great toy. Taking bird pictures with this camera is unbelievably easy. This morning, I took pictures of five out of the six species of wheatears I was able to find. Since wheatears are so beautiful, interesting, and difficult for me to identify, I thought I would make this blog entry a “wheatear special.” All the pictures were taken this morning on the Iraq/Kuwait border. I am trying to improve my wheatear identification skills, and if I get better pictures later I'll just switch them out with these.
ISABELLINE WHEATEAR – OENANTHE ISABELLINA
Both the male and female isabelline wheatears look just like the female northern wheatear, with some key differences:
The isabelline stands more upright, on longer legs.
Its tail is slightly shorter, with less extensive white on the outer tail feathers.
Its wing feathers are more uniformly sandy, which makes the dark alula (the tiny feather on the edge of the wing’s “wrist”) stand out more.
This is mainly a southwest Asian species.
NORTHERN WHEATEAR – OENANTHE OENANTHE
This is the classic circumpolar wheatear. It can even be found in northwestern Alaska in the summertime. Interestingly, all the northern wheatears in the world winter in Africa. So the Alaskan wheatears have to fly all the way across Asia to get to their wintering grounds, even though it would make more sense for them to fly straight down to Mexico like everyone else. The reason is probably that while their breeding range expanded, they did not “learn” to find new wintering ranges. It is impressive and a little depressing to think that some of these northern wheatears are going to fly all the way to Alaska and back before I can go home.
PIED WHEATEAR – OENANTHE PLESCHANKA
PIED WHEATEAR – OENANTHE PLESCHANKA
On this photo of a pied wheatear, we can see a black back, which leaves only the pied and mourning wheatear as possibilities. The mourning wheatear (which I have also seen here) is eliminated because it has very white underparts, as opposed to this bird which has buff spots just under the throat and wing angle. More importantly, but I don’t have a photo, the pied wheatear’s wings do not have white panels. Almost all the pied wheatears I have seen so far had a marked grey cap like this one does. Apparently, this is a way to distinguish the pied wheatear from the Easern pied wheatear Oenanthe picata.
DESERT WHEATEAR – OENANTHE DESERTI
A very pretty species that I see on a regular basis. The tail is almost entirely black. The parts that are white-buff on the black-eared wheatear are almost all buff on the desert wheatear. Finally, the throat patch is tenuously connected to the black wing “wrist.” In fact, today I saw that when the desert wheatears straightened their necks to swallow the little gray moths that invaded us today, the throat patch separated from the “wrist,” which made them look like black-eared wheatears.
DESERT WHEATEAR – OENANTHE DESERTI
A very pretty species that I see on a regular basis. The tail is almost entirely black. The parts that are white-buff on the black-eared wheatear are almost all buff on the desert wheatear. Finally, the throat patch is tenuously connected to the black wing “wrist.” In fact, today I saw that when the desert wheatears straightened their necks to swallow the little gray moths that invaded us today, the throat patch separated from the “wrist,” which made them look like black-eared wheatears.
BLACK-EARED WHEATEAR - OENANTHE HISPANICA
(white-throated form)
All right, I cheated: I took this picture two days after the others, but I just like the idea of having all the wheatears together. In fact, if I manage to take a picture of a mourning wheatear I'll probably go back and put it up here as well.
The male black-eared wheatear has a light back with a buff wash, an eye patch which does not reach the wing "wrist," and black scapulars which restrict the pale area of the back to a small triangle compared to the desert wheatear. Compared to the Finsch's wheatear, notice how the black-eared wheatear's eye patch points up and back (this is especially useful when considering the black-throated form of the black-eared wheatear).
The male black-eared wheatear has a light back with a buff wash, an eye patch which does not reach the wing "wrist," and black scapulars which restrict the pale area of the back to a small triangle compared to the desert wheatear. Compared to the Finsch's wheatear, notice how the black-eared wheatear's eye patch points up and back (this is especially useful when considering the black-throated form of the black-eared wheatear).
BLACK-EARED WHEATEAR - OENANTHE HISPANICA
(black-throated form)
This is another beautiful, yet maddeningly variable wheatear (and I haven't even gotten into females yet...). This one is clearly not a Finsch's wheatear in spite of the throat patch that rounds back like the Finsch's is supposed to, but I have seen several birds that I simply cannot identify. In fact, I removed the Finsch's wheatear photo I had posted earlier because it fit within the range of variation of black-eared wheatears I have been seeing lately. The white gap between the throat patch and wing "wrist" is a key criterion, as are the black scapular.
Significant birds seen this morning were: three steppe eagles, and my first “feldegg” subspecies yellow wagtail.
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