Seen in Japan, but need ID please

[Geoff Warnock]

Hi everyone,

While at a conference in Kyoto I caught this snap of an orange/black, 10-15 cm bird in the gardens of the Imperial Palace. Unfortunately, my efforts on Google and in our bird encyclopedia have let me down. Can anyone help?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/5365454...7624759176401/

[Roy Priest]

It looks like a varied tit to me. I did a search for japanese tit - images and among the expected non bird images were a couple of the varied tit.

[John Chardine]

Agree. Just came up with the same ID independently.

[Geoff Warnock]

Thankyou Roy and John, looks like the 'orangeness' of the cheeks threw me off, but according to the wiki, a subspecies 'P. v. owstoni has chestnut coloured cheeks'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varied_Tit

Thanks for such a quick ID!

[Geoff Warnock]

This is the bird in question (and a first foray into making an image directly visible).

japanese varied tit 2 by Geoff Warnock, on Flickr