The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Hi

Presumed hybrid Black Brant x Dark-bellied Brent was in newly sown field adjacent to the car park at lunch time, with approx 530 DBBG.

2 Hen harriers (ad male and juv)
Merlin
Sparrowhawk
2 Barn Owl
2+ Lapland Buntings
36 Twite

Plus a Weasel down to 5m, attracted by some serious pishing!

Cheers,

Paul

in some lights Paul that bird looks remarkably Black Brant like! An easy pitfall if one is not careful I imagine..

I thought that I had sent Paul a PM asking him why he thinks it's a hybrid but as I hadn't received a reply I have checked my sent box and seen that the PM has vanished. So Paul - what makes it a hybrid?

Methinks it's time for me to head to Frampton Marsh..... need to 'tick' Twite....

Ed

I would imagine the brown (rather than black) colour to the body (not really much darker than any of the surrounding Dark-bellied Brents) would indicate this bird being a hybrid. Look how dark it can look when the sun is not shining on it though!

Josh

I thought it was too quiet on here re this bird...

Ed- sorry, but i havn't recieved any PM. I get notified on my e-mail and nothing has come through.

This is actually an interesting bird. The photos i've posted on here were taken in strong light (although it was directly behind me) so overemphasise the "Black Brantness" of the bird. In flat, overcast conditions, the white flanks are not as prominent as they appear here. I'd like to get some more photos to illustrate this. They are whiter than on DBBG, but not up to Brant standard. And as i'm sure you're aware and is illustarted here, the whiteness of all DBBG flanks is increased in a 3/4 facing away view. The collar however, is big! As you can see, it joins at the front and almost meets at the rear. It also has that rectangular appearance at the rear which is found on Black Brant. I've never seen a DBBG to have that shape of collar (although i've seen plenty that have collars that join at the front).
The bird is also big. It does stand out as being big in the flock, so must be a male, but Black Brant also usually appears slightly larger to me than DBBG.
As Josh has pointed out, the belly and the mantle are not dark enough for a Black Brant either. In fact, in overcast conditions, the belly is actually not the darkest on show in this flock. The mantle is identical in tone to DBBG and has a slight greyish cast, as opposed to the brownish tones usually shown by Black Brant (although interestingly, if you look at enough DBBG you'll see birds with brown tones to the mantle).
So to conclude, it shows a good collar, half decent flanks and is large. The belly and mantle however are normal for DBBG. Hence my assumption of hybrid. We've mooted the possibility of an extreme DBBG, but i think that it shows enough features to be thought of as a hybrid. I find it interesting because most hybrids found are much closer to Black Brant than this bird. In fact, many of them are classic Black Brants in appearance apart from having a broken collar (and these may in fact be genuine Black Brant...). These birds may represent just one extreme of the spectrum, with the Frampton bird being closer to the other end. Its just that these more DBBG-like birds do not get picked out as often.

Hope thats answered some questions, but if i get any more pics i'll post them in the discussion album.

Cheers,

Paul.

Thanks for that comprehensive reply. I have been a little confused regarding the plumage range of Black Brant since I was in Norfolk with John Walker last year. We were going through Brent Goose flocks and were joined by a birder whose name eludes me but who does occasional work with Natural England at Holkham and who has worked for a couple of seasons in Canada with Black Brants. He picked out a couple of birds that were more DBBG like than your bird with greyer 'backs', less white on flanks and similar underparts. When we questioned this he explained that there was a large range of plumage types present in the Canadian population. Also if you go through the photo gallery of Black Brant in Bird Guides( not always correctly ID'd I know) you will find several birds listed as Black Brant but looking more 'hybridised ' than your bird but similar to the birds we were shown in Norfolk.
Of course, I agree with you that this is not a 'typical' old Black Brant but remain confused all the same. Think I will do some more research!!