First-winter female Siberian Blue Robin
First-winter female, Marina South, Hong Kong, 12th October 1996 Peter Kennerley
Text by Brian J Small
Perhaps the most obvious feature is the pale and broad eye-ring, but the head is also marked by a faint supra-loral line above darker lores (obscured by pale tips to the loral feathers. The ear-coverts are also marked with neat cream shaft-streaks. An ochreous wash to the under-parts, strongest on the breast and flanks, is marked with: fine barring on the chin, throat and sub-moustachial area; strong brown crescents on the breast; diffuse, dusky ochre barring along the flanks. The bill has a largely black upper mandible and tip to the lower, with a flesh cutting edge to the upper and base to the lower mandible.
Above, the general olive-brown appearance of the mantle contrasts with the more richly coloured wings, which is largely produced by warm buff edges to the greater coverts, primary coverts and fringes to remiges. This feature is the means by which it can be aged as a first-winter, as can the pale edges and tips to the tertials and the buff outer web to the alula. Note also the warm olive tips to the upper-tail coverts and the dark (in this instance blue-toned) tail feathers. On this last feature, it may be worth noting that Peter Kennerley has never trapped a first-winter female without some blue or blue tone in the tail, but this may be a feature of birds from the Far East.
