Stray Feathers - a Journal of Ornithology for India and its Dependencies March 1979

following is a description of the plumage of the adult male :- The frontal plumes and a narrow streak on the centre of the CTOW 11 ; a narrow band surrounding the bare gular space and running up to the ear-coverts; these latter and a broad stripe running backwards from them nearly to the occiput black ; the rest of the head the whole neck all round and the upper breast bright orange maroon [...] huffy or fulvous fawn bars ; the quills and greater primary coverts are similar to the basal portions of the tail ; the whole of the lower breast abdomen and vent a pale dove-brown or dove-grey each feather with an inconspicuous ill-defined somwhat paler patch towards the tip ; the flanks and sides of the breast are marked like the back ; the tibial plumes are more or less ferruginous inter [...] in almost to the shaft about half way up the feather ; the rest of the front and sides of the neck and upper-breast in much the same style as the back of the neck and mantle but the ground brown the frecklings duller in colour and more diffuse and the spot only indicated. [...] The breast abdomen sides flanks vent lower tail-coverts tibial plumes axillaries and winHining in some specimens all pure white and unmarked in others with a few spots traces of obsolete bars on some of the feathers of the sides flanks and lower tail-coverts The variation in the amount of barring at the base of the neck on the extreme sides of the breast and elsewhere is prbably s [...] In the breeding season the tertiaries are said to be greatly elongated sickle-shaped and reaching to the end of the prmaries; the shafts and external edges of these feathers whitish the outer ones being entirely velvety black but the inner ones less black and finely vermiculated." There is no trace of this development in our bird ; in it the tertiaries are pale grey brown.