Rosy Starling Pastor roseus 粉紅椋鳥
Category I. Rare winter visitor to open-country areas.
IDENTIFICATION
Oct. 2021, Matthew Kwan. Juvenile.
Juveniles are brown with paler underparts apart from dark-centred undertail coverts and have a largely yellow bill.
Mar. 2013, Michelle and Peter Wong. First-winter.
Birds not in juvenile plumage have a contrasting pattern of dark on the head, wings and undertail coverts, pinkish-toned underparts mantle. The brightness of these varies with age, with adult males being very striking. First-winter birds (this one has juvenile primaries and secondaries) such as this are dullest.
VOCALISATIONS
Calls include an inflected buzzing ‘zeerp’ and a chattering.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Most records have occurred in lowland open-country areas of the northwest New Territories from Long Valley to Tsim Bei Tsui. In addition, single records have occurred at Cyberport on HK Island, Po Toi and Tsing Yi Park.
OCCURRENCE
Up to 1996 there had been three records comprising four birds from 7 November to 13 April, the first of which was a juvenile at Mai Po on 7th and 12 November 1982. What was probably two birds remained in the Ha Tsuen and Tsim Bei Tsui area from 30 December 1984 to 13 April 1985.
By 2020 there had been 20 records from 24 September to 28 April, most in the period from October to March. Most records concern juveniles or birds in moult to first-winter plumage. The few reports of birds in adult-type plumage include a male in song on 27 February 2014.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Forages in similar habitats and manner to Common Starling, and thus both on the ground and arboreally.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds from southeast Europe east to northwest China and south to northwest Iran and Afghanistan; winters largely in the Indian subcontinent but vagrants are regular in many places as far west as Europe and east to China (Craig and Feare 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern.
Craig, A. J. F. and C. J. Feare (2020). Rosy Starling (Pastor roseus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.rossta2.01
