From Hong Kong last week came this photograph of a male stonechat. Taxonomy of the stonechats of Eurasia is mighty complicated and this one is known at present as Stejneger’s Stonechat, Saxicola stejnegeri.
I say mighty complicated because to old Hong Kong birders this was called the Siberian Stonechat, S. maurus and sometimes as an eastern race of the Common Stonechat, S. torquatus. Since some of the evidence that recognises the form found in Hong Kong as a passage migrant and winter visitor from its breeding grounds in north-east China, is based on differences in mitochondrial and not nuclear DNA, I am not sure that the present taxonomy will hold sway for that long.
Stejneger was the Norwegian-born Leonhard Hess Stejneger (1851-1943) who made his name in the U.S.A. mainly as a herpetologist working at the Smithsonian. The pronunciation of Stejneger always offers a challenge to Brits. Here, apparently, is the way it should sound.
Beautiful bird.
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