Non-Stop Birding: Saker drama

Been an interesting development on the identify of a well known pair of falcons in Azerbaijan. We saw these birds in 2022, original post HERE.

They have been widely viewed by travelling birders and identified by local ornithologists as a pair of Lanner, an adult male that has paired up with a young female at the time. However Andrea Corso questioned the identification recently so the photos were sent to Dick Forsman who confirmed they were actually a pair of Sakers. A lifer for a lot of people including myself.

There was a lot of discussion at the time about the identification and many people present suggested the female bird was a Saker but the possibility of a mixed pairing seemed too improbable. The main problem was the misidentification of the male as nobody present expected a Saker to be so pale and so Lanner-like (from below which was the only views we had) so once the presumption was made that the male was a Lanner then the female was scrutinised further even though it looked like what we expected a Saker to look like and although a pairing of an adult male and a young female was also improbable it seemed more plausible than a mixed pairing. We had limited photos and the photo below (first image) seemed to show pale trousers on the female which is a feature of a young Lanner so we all jumped into the well.

Following the comments by Andrea and Dick we re-analysed the photos and put out a call for additional photos and indeed an adult pair of Sakers seems to make more sense and a closer look at additional photos does show that the female bird does have the diagnostic dark trousers and rear flanks and the male bird indeed is not a male Lanner, especially when the upperparts are seen. A few captioned photos below goes into a few more details and read to the end for a further twist of the knife :

Adult female Saker, Gobustan, Azerbaijan February 2022 (Vincent Legrand). The 'trousers' appear pale in this photo which led to the original misidentification as a young Lanner.

Adult male Saker, Gobustan, Azerbaijan, February 2022 (Vincent Legrand). This old male has become very pale and appears very Lanner-like from below. Old males can become pale like this.

Male and female Saker, Gobustan, Azerbaijan, February 2022 (Luk) . This new photo has recently come to light. The female is sitting on the nest and the male (right) is standing guard. The upperparts of the male are clearly brown rather than bluish and the visible crown is not contrasting as expected in adult male Lanner.

Female Saker, Gobustan, Azerbaijan, February, 2022, composite photo above and below (Vincent Legrand). In the photo below the dark trousers and streaked rear flanks are clearly shown for the first time, these are diagnostic features of Saker.

Female Saker, Gobustan, Azerbaijan, February 2022 (Vincent Legrand). In a further twist to this little identification drama, this female is clearly an escaped falconers bird with the remains of straps appearing as rings on both legs. The male was un-ringed. We can only assume that a female escaped bird has paired up with a wild male bird. Considering the female appears so well adapted to the wild it is also possible it was originally a wild bird that escaped? All in all, a bit of a palaver.

Additional Pics:

Chris Townend (Wise Birding) has sent over some photos showing the variation in Sakers that he has seen on trips to Mongolia (Cheers Chris!):