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Saturday, 24 October 2020

African Stonechat

 All this Stonechat talk reminded me of a lifer I had last year in Uganda which got a bit lost in all the tropical specialities. Here's our trip report: UGANDA TRIP REPORT. According to IOC and also  Shirihai and Svensson, African Stonechat is a separate species to Siberian, Stejgneger's and European Stonechat. African Stonechat occurs in the Greater Western Palearctic on the Arabian Peninsula (of the race felix) and is widely distributed on the African continent with up to 13 sub-species. Perhaps it's a potential vagrant to the Western Palearctic? 

As far as I can work out a bird in Uganda is either albofasciatus or axillaris. On the limited information I have the pair we saw in Uganada fits the description of axillaris; deep red confined to upper and central breast, very contrasting (almost black and white) and clean white rump. A striking bird in adult male plumage but presumably a lot trickier in immature and female plumages. 



Male African Stonechat (above) and female (below) 

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