I have recently received feedback on pictures that I have
sent round a few people on the Jackdaws that I have found around Conwy County
this winter. I have over 250 pictures of at least 12 ‘neck collared’
individuals. Most comments are adapted from Rudy Offereins emails. He wrote
this interesting article for Dutch Birding on ‘Identification of eastern subspecies of
Western Jackdaw and occurrence in the Netherlands’. Link here http://calidris.home.xs4all.nl/monedula.htm
This first bird turned up in my garden during the snow on 20/01/2013.
This followed a period of snow and easterly winds. Alan Tilmouth wrote this on
the birding frontiers website http://birdingfrontiers.com/2011/04/10/eastern-jackdaws/
I’ve also noticed that the timing is interesting
with many of these ‘Eastern-type’ Jackdaws showing up from December onwards
with a peak in February/March. There could be two factors at play here; weather
related movements from the continent perhaps pushing birds further west in bad
winters and the tendency for juveniles to move further than adults that only
subsequently get detected as they begin to wear in late winter causing the
collars and neck patches to become more prominent.
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| My garden Llandudno Junction 20/01/2013 |
Per Rudy, The birds in
your garden are ‘classic’ monedula’s because of their pale and long collars and
their pale under-parts where darker chevrons shine through. Local resident
birds would have much
darker under-parts.
darker under-parts.
This is true as the accompanying local Jackdaws have almost,
completely black under-parts. He also added.
Variation within
spermologus is with these birds (because of the paler under-parts, combined
with the pale collar) out of the question.
The same comment was given for this bird at Sychnant pass, Conwy 21/02/2013. These birds show a strong contrast between the black wings and paler under-parts and mantle.
The picture below was taken at Caerhun on 25/02/2013. It showed
neck-collar but less paler under-parts. I was told as it has no clear marks on
the under-parts it is best to leave these birds un-identified. However, looking
more like the Russian race soemmerringii with their darker looking
upper-parts and a neck-collar, I think they could be from the messy turrium intergrate of monedula and spermologus or, could also be part of the off-spring from the
‘Nordic origin’ birds that have stayed in Wales and bred.
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| Bird to be left un-identified, Caerhun |
After keeping an eye on some of these individuals, most of
these birds have now gone. I wonder how many ‘neck collared’ birds are seen
from April onwards. Most of the birds I have seen are in stubble fields with
other Jackdaws. Interestingly the biggest congregation of Jackdaws is in Conwy
itself, but doesn’t seem to contain any neck collared birds.
From this feedback, I feel I now know which birds are more
likely to be ‘monedula’ and which ones to ignore.
Feel free to disagree with anything here or add any suggestions etc.
Final comment from Rudy
There is no chance of a full species
status, but they are eastern birds and that's always a nice feature in Wales!
