Though it had not acquired adult plumage, this second-calendar-year male was singing powerfully and defending territory. Adult-male “ albocoeruleus” have a white supercilium as in cyanurus, and “ albocoeruleus” are said to be closer genetically to cyanurus, but the legs of “ albocoeruleus” are long, as in rufilatus. It is currently recognized neither as a species in its own right nor as a subspecies of Red-flanked Bluetail Tarsiger cyanurus or Himalayan Bluetail T. The taxonomy of “Gansu” Bluetail is uncertain. Our record pushes the eastern edge of the range of “ albocoeruleus” from the western side of Beijing to the mountains northeast of the metropolis. Before our discovery, the easternmost of those mountains was Haituoshan, 140 air-km (87 air-miles) west of Wulingshan. In Beijing, Hebei, and Shanxi, “ albocoeruleus” has now been found on at least six mountains. Until recently, “Gansu” Bluetail was thought to breed only in Qinghai and Gansu, 1200 km (745 miles) to the southwest. Craig Brelsfordįound at Wulingshan, Hebei, on 11 June: “ Gansu” Bluetail Tarsiger ( cyanurus? rufilatus?) “ albocoeruleus.” Our record is the first for the mountain northeast of Beijing, the first for Chengde Prefecture in Hebei, and the easternmost in history for the form. In this post, I report a new eastern record of “Gansu” and discuss the current taxonomic limbo of the form. Eventual photos shown in this page may or may not be from Wikipedia, please see the license details for photos in photo by-lines.Our featured image above shows the bluetails of the world: Himalayan (left panels), Red-flanked (right panels), and in the middle the inscrutable “Gansu” Bluetail. This article uses material from Wikipedia released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike Licence 3.0. The Himalayan bluetail is a short-distance altitudinal migrant species, breeding in the Himalaya in bush layer (dwarf rhododendron in wetter areas, deciduous bushes in drier) of conifer and mixed conifer-oak forest, main species fir (Abies) but sometimes in areas with Picea smithiana or Pinus wallichiana/Cupressus torulosa forest at 3000–4400 m, not penetrating beyond tree-line and in winters found at 1, 500–2, 500 m typically in broadleaf evergreen forest, dense dark undergrowth and thickets, clearings, treefall gaps with vine tangles, open woodland commonly seen along tracks favours ridges and mountain tops. It is closely related to the red-flanked bluetail and was generally treated as a subspecies of it in the past, but as well as differing in its migratory behaviour (the red-flanked bluetail is a long-distance migrant), it also differs in the more intense blue colour of the adult males and the greyer colour of the females and juveniles. While currently under review, this taxon is not current recognized as a species by BirdLife international. The Himalayan bluetail or Himalayan red-flanked bush-robin also called the Orange-flanked bush-robin (Tarsiger rufilatus) is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher of Muscicapidae.
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