Further to my post on the interesting heron I
photographed at Sabhat Al Fasl on 16 March 2013 I have received the following comments
from various people I have contacted and I thank them for replying to my
question. I will not include their names as there are differences in opinion
and I have not asked permission to publish their comments.
“I have had a long look at your heron and my initial
thoughts about how dark and maroon the back looked has been tempered by the rather
thin and broken streaking on the head and neck. I haven't seen these well for a
while, but my memories of IPH are that the streaks are broad and dark and more
prominent across the whole head. There is also often a very obvious dark
line across the lores, which yours hints at, but is not quite prominent enough.
If I was on a committee, I would say that the bird might be IPH, but as there
are discrepancies between it and my impression of IPH I would not accept it. It
might well still be, but based on this one image, am not sure”.
“Your heron
certainly looks like an Indian Pond Heron and is too dark for a Squacco. Was it
taken in late spring as the bird is obviously in breeding plumage? I don't
think the lack of streaking on the breast is a problem in breeding plumage, nor
the lack of a dark line through the lores. They are field marks in winter
plumage, but not so obvious in summer. The bill looks rather long and
pointed though, but still I would go for and Indian Pond Heron”.
“I think it an Indian Pond heron based on the loral
area shape and size amongst other features”.
“Annoyingly, your bird has no crown streamers that
should be pure white in summer plumaged IPH and black tipped in Squacco Heron.
Apart from the very dark back (but I guess some SHs could come close to this,
especially late evening – it looks like the sun was low when you photographed
this bird) there is nothing really suggestive of IPH here – little or no loral
bar for example (a few IPH in full breeding plumage in OBC images have this
very reduced, but not all) and the neck streaking, seemingly on a buffy tinged
ground colour does not seem excessively heavy compared to the adjacent SH. So,
in conclusion, I agree with you – I do not think this is a safe call for IPH,
especially as a rare vagrant. However, I would not be certain that I would put
it down as a definite SH either; would want to evaluate the back in much better
light before doing that. An interesting bird.”
“This could be IPH; I
don't think I would like to say for sure on the basis of this image. Certainly
it appears too dark for SH but I wonder what my bird (darkish backed SH) would
have looked like if photographed at dawn instead of full sunlight. Given that
it was taken in mid-March, I guess that an IPH that has moulted its mantle and
scaps, but is yet to moult the neck feathers would look like this. From what I
recall, the Alula reference suggests that the neck is moulted last (?) If the
neck has started to moult, this may explain why the streaks are maybe not as
heavy as they might be as well. I agree that the loral bar does appear to be
rather weak or non-existent on some bp IPH so the weakness of that in your bird
may not be a problem”.
“looks OK for Indian Pond Heron to me”.
“it looks good, especially dark upperparts and the
bonus that you have direct comparison with a Squacco Heron. Apparently there is
quite a variation within the species as regards overall streaking and
therefore, in particular, the prominence of the loral line”.
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| Interesting Heron |
I sent a message to Mike Jennings the coordinator of
the Arabian Breeding Birds Atlas, asking if he had any records of Indian Pond
Heron for Saudi Arabia as he has a database of (mainly breeding) birds in the
country, to see if he knew of any records. Mike kindly checked his database and
did not have any Indian Pond Heron records for Saudi Arabia. However as
it is not (yet) a breeding species his recording has not been 100% thorough and
a quick check of other sources shows that in his 1981 checklist of Saudi birds,
he rejected a record from 1976-7 by Warren in the Gulf and sent me the paper
detailing this record which does not, in my opinion, positively identify the
bird seen as an Indian Pond Heron. I do not know of any other records of the species
for Saudi Arabia.
 |
| Indian Pond Heron |
Jens Eriksson sent an excellent photo of an Indian
Pond Heron from Salalah, Oman taken in early May for comparison to my bird and
Nitin Srinivasamurthy also took a nice photo of an Indian Pond Heron in India
in mid-February at Kumarakom, Kerala, India and kindly allowed me to use it on
my website, as always the copyright of this photograph remains with the
photographer Nitin. As a result of being able to use these two photos I made a
compilation photo of the three birds and as they are taken at slightly
different times, mid-Feb, mid-March and early May so I could see how the moult
may progress. This does make the bird in Saudi Arabia look a lot more like an
Indian Pond Heron than my initial impression as it fits in perfectly between
the two other images. The paper on identification of Squacco, Indian and
Chinese Pond Herons by Frederic Jiguet (Alula 3-2006 – 114-119) states that the
neck feathers are the last to be moulted and the back and mantle the first, so
maybe this is why the neck streaking is not quite as thick as I expected? And
some summer plumaged IPH have very reduced dark loral strip like the Saudi
Arabian bird such as the photograph from India shown below. As Indian Pond Heron would be either a rare vagrant or
a first for the country (although they have occurred in UAE & Kuwait) the
photograph of the bird I took is not sufficient to claim this as a definite
record of the species. This bird certainly has some of the features of an Indian
Pond Heron but for me personally I will need to find a really classic example
for me to claim a first for Saudi Arabia. I will certainly keep my eye out for
other interesting birds when I see any Squacco Herons in Saudi Arabia.