Mystery Bird: Common Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus

Wow, my first impression was that it is very similar to the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) and also looks a lot like a female Red-flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus) but without the orange sides and blue tail (!), so I'm inclined to be looking somewhere near the Muscicapidae...

I'm sure it's one of the redstarts and I want to say it's a female Black Redstart, Phoenicurus ochruros, but it's quite close to a female Common Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, and between the two (and with Italy being a geographical confluence of migratory species) there are 7 subspecies possibilities... I can see why the photographer is a little unsure...

(As you can tell, school is out and I get to play and breathe easy free from the exigencies of 350 inner-city, very "street" kids!)

I'm going to stick with a juvenile or female European Black Redstart, Phoenicurus ochruros subspecies gibraltariensis (common to western Europe): grey-brown upperparts, lacking the white wing patch of males, reddish outer-tail feathers (differentiated from the very similar female nightingale because of the dark central tailfeathers- female nightingales are uniformly reddish in the tail).

It is possible this could be Phoenicurus ochruros aterrimus, the Iberian Black Redstart, which is normally confined to Iberia and adjacent North Africa, but there is some research indicating intergrading between aterrimus and gibraltariensis and there is also research supporting hybridization between the Black (P. ochruros) and Common (P. phoenicurus) Redstarts.

Apparently sexing between females and juvenile males is very difficult simply through plumage and as this photo is dated December, after postjuvenile moult, some 1st year males are similar to females.

Hi all, been keeping quiet on this one but I have to throw the proverbial spanner and say it's a Common Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, as females and 1st winter males show a contrast between the grey-brown uppers and brown-buff underparts, Black have upper and underparts with grey-brown colouration (although some individuals are a lot paler underneath). Also Common Redstart shows some or a lot of peach tint to the underparts, just discernable in this photo. To clinch the id the eyering is too obvious for Black which has a very thin eyering. As I can't see any obvious juvenile feathers I think this is a female.

Hi again, here's a link (I hope) to separating the two by Keith Vinicombe, one of UK's leading ID experts.

adrian; your link as pasted into your comment did not work. i dug up the original site and fixed the link so others can follow it.

Thanks for that David, I thought it may not work. OOPS, sorry Resveratol that should read ADULT female.

Adrian,

re. #4: great link, thank you- I agree, a Common Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, but as there are reports in Italy (and in fact as far north as the UK) of samamiscius as opposed to the western subspecies phoenicurus which we would expect, I can't tell the difference- the rosy breast seems to clinch it in the Black/Common debate...

re. #6a from what I understand, you don't really want to be touching that stuff as resveratrol treatment has only extended the life of fruit flies, nematode worms and short-lived fish!

re. #6b Grrl fixed the link, not I!

re. #6c I agree again, adult female.

Hi Adrian,

Yet again all my comments, no matter the shortness, href attributes or not, are getting referred for moderating or still flying aimlessly around in the ethernet, so I just wanted to reiterate that I do agree that the peachy/buff underparts seems to underline that this is indeed an adult female Common Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus, (although I'm not convinced the eyering is a clincher) range-wise probably a triple-play P. p. phoenicurus, although there are multiple records for samamisicus in Italy and as far north as the UK (several spotted this Winter)

Further comparison provided by BirdID.eu:

female Common Redstart

female Black Redstart

In case you may be interested...

one on my conservation initiatives is building greenroofs here in the States (not just for watershed protection but also as conservation habitat sites for endangered native plant and invertebrate species) and I've come across multiple projects in the literature that specifically aim to create rooftop habitats for the Black Redstart in the UK in an attempt to recreate environments similar to the WWII bomb damaged and 1960's derelict industrial sites colonised by this species.

Extensive [relatively shallow] Green Roofs in London

photo of Black Redstart roof 3 years after construction

Hi again, I think the reason for the increase in of "samamisicus" records is due to a couple of ID papers that have been recently published. I will have to check if any have been accepted yet.The green roof idea is great as Black Redstart has been declining as a breeding species and is now Amber listed. My resveretrol reply was to a post that seems to have disappeared querying why just female. I also seem to have difficulty accessing the comments section on occassion, I don't know if this is because I tried to register at Pharyngula and I never received a confirmation e-mail or not.

Sorry Grrl, thanks for the correction to my mistake I'll have to read the posters name in future.

resveratrol is a spammer whose comments contributed nothing to the ongoing discussion, so he ended up in the trash can where all the worthless rat droppings are deposited.

I guess my question is: What is the occurance of Common Redstart in northern (Genova) Italy in December? The field guides would lead one to believe that only the Black Redstart would be the bird in that area in December.

Cliff,

Ther may be a number of reasons the Common Redstart may still be in Italy in December- although the migration period for northern Europe (UK, Sweden, Finland, etc.) starts in September, passage migrants (i.e. those that are still Africa-bound) are common throughout October and November depending upon conditions (note the photos of Common Redstarts still dated mid-October in northern England)- it is entirely possible that this bird is simply a late straggler or even that a small population of this species has become resident in the milder winters of it's breeding range and indeed, as argued in the article attached below, climate change could play a part:

Coppack, T. et al (2003) Photoperiodic response may facilitate adaptation to climatic change in long-distance migratory birds. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 2003 270, S43-S46

Understanding the population dynamics of long-distance migrants like the Common Redstart is difficult, and adverse conditions in one part of it's range can affect it's distribution in another- for example, severe droughts in sub-Saharan Africa have been suggested as contributors to this species' decline in Europe* and it could well be that over time a trend towards shortening the migration distance is one way the sepcies has adapted to the loss on wintering habitat.

*Hagemeijer, W.J.M. and Blair, M.J. (1997) . London: Poyser.