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Conundrum It’S Time to Put Your Identifi­Cation Skills to the Test… If You Can Correctly Identify This Species, You Could Win a Thule Camera Bag

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Conundrum It’S Time to Put Your Identifi­Cation Skills to the Test… If You Can Correctly Identify This Species, You Could Win a Thule Camera Bag QUIZZICAL CRYPTIC conundrum It’s time to put your identifi cation skills to the test… If you can correctly identify this species, you could win a Thule camera bag. WIN this Thule Perspektiv Daypack valued at R1 999. As you capture the action on any adventure, make sure your equipment is protected with the photographer’s ultimate camera bag. This award-winning product allows easy access to key equipment, has a removable SafeZone camera compartment, ergonomic chassis system and an organisation panel for three SD cards and two batteries. Whatever your passion, whatever your pursuit. Wherever you’re going, whatever you’re bringing. With Thule, you’re free to live your active life to the full. www.thule.co.za Send your entries by e-mail to [email protected] (with ‘Quiz’ in the subject line) or on a postcard to Quiz, African Birdlife, P O Box 23147, Claremont 7735, Cape Town. Remember to include your full contact details. Note that multiple electronic entries will be deleted. Entries close on Friday, 20 June 2014; the judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. The win- ner’s name and the solution to this quiz will be published in the September/October 2014 issue of African Birdlife. And the answer is… Solution to the Cryptic Conundrum that appeared in the January/February 2014 issue. his bird is being coy, and without a view of its face or bill you have to rely on its jizz. Knowledge of that depends on your experience so you could be excused for struggling a bit. It is a passerine, and the rather drab plumage and sparseT vegetation suggest an open-country species. But the jizz is wrong for a lark or pipit; the long legs and erect stance indicate a muscicapid, a family that includes the Old World flycatchers, robins, chats, wheatears, redstarts and rock thrushes. The relatively short tail rules out the robin-chats, scrub robins and most redstarts, the legs are too long for a flycatcher, and the plumage doesn’t fit a rock thrush. So we’re left with the chats and wheatears – a challenging group throughout much of Africa due to the annual influx of migrant wheatears. The plain head, lacking any hint of a pale supercilium, rules out Capped Wheatear and most migrant wheatears. The most likely candidates are the resident Cercomela chats. Enough of the tail is showing to exclude Familiar Chat and Brown-tailed Rock Chat, and the wing-edgings are too bright for a Sombre Rock Chat. The tail is too short for a Karoo Chat, and the buffy flanks and brown upperparts are too warm-toned for Tractrac or Karoo Chat, so we are left with the Sickle-winged Chat Cercomela sinuata. Most guides show it with pale underparts, but the flanks are often rich buff. Interestingly, a recent study suggests that most Cercomela chats are better placed in Oenanthe with the wheatears, and erects a new genus, Emarginata, for the three southern African endemic species: Karoo, Tractrac and Sickle-winged chats. Congratulations to the winner, Joshua Rogers of White River, Mpumalanga. 50 AFRICAN BIRDLIFE.
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