Southern shore of lake Issyk-Kul, Kirgisien, Kirgisien
Dato:
20. juli 2009
Billede info:
The left side of the same bird that Michael Westerbjerg Andersen also photographed.
I admit that I am very much in doubt considering the birds age.
However I think that on the left side of the bird, the edges on most coverts (both median and greater) looks rather white (whitish). Could this fit an adult bird?
We thought it was a 1cy, because of the obvious yellow gape and the flightfeathers and underwing coverts that were in growth. In fact the underwing-covert area was looking rather "naked" and almost "skeleton"-like.
Yoav Perlman skriver fredag 7. august 2009 kl. 16.31
Hi Henrik and Michael,
From the images I saw, this does not look like a 1cy - body feathers pretty heavily worn and with the wrong pattern. 1cy should be very fresh and warm-toned.
However, it would be interesting to see images of the open wing, to check the amount of wear and the moult, which will determine the age positively.
To me, this bird is a classic 2cy. The wear of the coverts and tail-feathers (on other pictures) fits very well with a 1st summer bird.
There is a clear difference in the pattern of the median coverts. When counted from the outside, MC #6 and 7 have another pattern in the dark central area than MC# 1-5 and there is also a different colouration to the edges. The outer 5 MC are retained juvenile feathers and the MC #6 and 7 have been replaced in a summer partial moult and moulted into adult-type coverts. It is shown in Svensson (1992), page 76.
This kind of difference in the MCs can also be seen in the pictures of the Richard's Pipit caught on Fanø in 2000.
English version
Yoav Perlman skriver fredag 7. august 2009 kl. 16.31 
