Jan Hein van Steenis
 ·  21 January 2023  22:42

Leuk!

Hans Overduin
 ·  22 January 2023  10:07

Mooi, Martin - wij hebben ze niet meer kunnen vinden, maar de dag erna wel een paartje met twee pullen bij Tindaya in de omgeving.

Rubén Barone
 ·  23 January 2023  13:19

Hi.

Very nice photo!

The young bird implies that the species bred in December or the end of November. As the islands have received unexpected rain from September, many birds typical of semi-desert environments, like this species, began to breed very early. About the early breeding of the Cream-coloured Courser and other species from Fuerteventura there is a recent, interesting paper in German:

NICOLAI, B. (2020). Frühe Brutsaison im Winter 2018/19 auf Fuerteventura (Kanarische Inseln). Vogelwarte 58: 215 – 224.

Best regards. 

Martin Lok
 ·  26 January 2023  10:15

Thanks for the quite interesting info, Ruben!

Not only the Cream-coloured Courser had bred early but the bustard too. We saw a female guiding two young. I shall place a photo of the bustard too.

Regards,

Martin

Rubén Barone
 ·  26 January 2023  11:10

Hi again.

Thanks for your response. 

Yes, among other species, Cream-coloured Courser, Houbara Bustard, Canary Islands Stonechat, and Great Grey Shrike have bred very early after the autumn rains. 

Best regards. 

Rubén Barone
 ·  28 January 2023  11:44

Hi again.

There is a specific paper on the early breeding of the Cream-coloured Courser:

AMEZIAN, M., P. BERGIER & A. QNINBA (2014). Autumn-winter breeding by Cream-coloured Coursers Cursorius cursor is more common than previously reported. Wader Study Group Bull. 121 (3): 177–180.

Best regards. 

Martin Lok
 ·  28 January 2023  15:33

Many thanks for all this interesting info. Very revealing!

Martin

Rubén Barone
 ·  28 January 2023  16:02

Hi again.

If you want to have both papers, please contact me by e-mail or by Research Gate. I have both publications in pdf.

Best regards. 

Martin Lok
 ·  28 January 2023  17:38

Thank you for your kind offer. I have been able to load both papers via the web, so there is no need to send them to me.

Kind regards,

Martin

Rubén Barone
 ·  28 January 2023  20:51

Ok, perfect.

There are few papers about the Cream-coloured Courser. It's an understudied species...

Best regards from the Canaries. 

Hans Overduin
 ·  29 January 2023  09:41

@Rubén: in case you want to keep numbers. please note that I saw 2 adults with 2 chicks near Tindaya on the 18th. The picture shows one taking shelter under a parents wing when it started raining again.

Rubén Barone
 ·  29 January 2023  12:36

Dear Hans and Martin,

Thanks for the information and images. I'm especially interested in the photos of the young with a pale coloration (supposedly leucistic), as we're compiling data and images about birds of the Canaries with aberrant colors for a future publication. Martin, please, can you send me the photos and dates of the observation (with precise locality and observers) of the pale chick to my e-mail? It's makaronesia68@yahoo.es.

Many thanks again, and best regards.