Not every odd bird is an hybrid, aberrant or vagrant

In early february 2014, Mrs. Rose McManus from Alicante, Spain, took three images of a bird she could not identify as proper of the Mediterranean landscapes where she lived. She sent the images to local birdwatcher Malcolm Palmer who eventually sent them to me.

Bird shown in the picture has a clear and interesting reddish bib which contrasts with the overall black, grey & white plumage. It may recall one of the few European species with such bib colour: the Red- breasted Flycatcher (Ficedula parva) or for the more open-minded, perhaps some kind of odd American warbler?

To really know what it is, if you have not realised it already, the clue is in the photo and it is not the bird but the flower. That particular species of garden plant produces such reddish coloured flowers with equally coloured staining polen. The bird is indeed a common Sardinian Warbler (Sylvia melanocephala) which has been stained with the plant polen while feeding near the flower.

Hence, not an hybrid, nor an aberrant colour nor a rarity! Just polen and colour added somewhere in a common species that, like in the forthcoming carnival, seems to dress it in a flycatcher mood.