Friday, 26 November 2010

Toot, toot! (Not)

Local opinion is that these birds are non-tooting Northern Bullfinch, apparently pileata has never been recorded with any certainty in Orkney.

2 comments:

AndyC said...

is the latest opinion the Northern Bullfinch dont toot but Trumpeter Northerns do..??ie there are thought to be 3 species.??

Alastair said...

Not species Andy (and sorry for the delay replying, the snow is causing me grief at work) but subspecies / forms. There is considerable disagreement about tooters. Constantine and Mullarny reckon that they are standard nominate jobs but Lee Evans and others think they have a more eastern origin; I'm with Lee on this one, they could feasibly be cassini.