Masters of Mystery greyish and olive-buff, also unlike Ménétries’s Warbler which has paler underparts with only a weak sandy-grey wash on the body sides. Ménétries’s also has more uniform, paler grey-sandy upperparts (slightly darker and more olive brown-grey in the mystery bird) and, more importantly, typical diffuse tertial fringes. The tertial fringes of Sardinian Warbler are better defined than those of Ménétries’s (contrasting with the dark feather-centres), but the tertial fringes and the edges of the remiges of the mystery bird are still too sharply defined and too extensively white for Sardinian. Compared with the mystery bird, Sardinian would also show warmer brown upperparts and, even in the Middle-Eastern subspecies S m momus which is greyer and paler than the nominate subspecies S m melanocephala, a more brownish wash on the body sides. The combination of striking blackish feathercentres with grey-white edges on the upperwing is a strong pointer towards Rüppell’s and Cyprus Warbler; actually, the choice could have been restricted to these two species by this feature alone. Structurally, the bird looks quite small and short-winged, with a primary projection of about 50%, and is not obviously large-billed. This fits Cyprus well, while Rüppell’s is a larger, more robust bird with a longer bill and, most significantly, a long primary-projection of about 6070% with six or seven primary-tips visible (as opposed to Cyprus which has a primary-projection of 40-50% with five or six primary-tips visible). Although first-year Cyprus can totally lack the characteristic black spots on the underparts, all ages of Cyprus show undertail-coverts with at least some dark bases and with whitish fringes, producing an often quite pronounced scaly pattern. The undertail-coverts of Rüppell’s are more uniform greyish or whitish, although they can show indistinct darker centres with broad pale fringes, but if present this pattern is less noticeable than in Cyprus. In the mystery bird, there is at least one undertail-covert visible matching the pattern of Cyprus. The relatively dark uppertailcoverts without obvious contrast with the dark tail also supports Cyprus, since Rüppell’s typically has a paler and purer blue-grey rump and uppertail-coverts contrasting with the blackish tail. Another feature of Cyprus is the clear white eye-ring (a pale eye-ring is usually lacking or less distinct and less white in Rüppell’s). Finally, note the whitish feathering just above the lores which is a feature often shown by first-year Cyprus. This first-summer female Cyprus Warbler was photographed at Eilat, Israel, on 20 March 1993
by Leo Boon. Most plumages of Cyprus are characterized by the presence of black or dark brown-grey spots and blotches on chin, throat and breast, often even down to belly and body sides. These dark markings make the identification of males and adult females rather straightforward (cf plate 38), but they can be lacking in first-winter females and, less frequently, first-summer females. The mystery bird is an example of the latter, although on close inspection there are a few very fine dark spots visible on the throat. 36% of the entrants identified it correctly, with incorrect answers including Sardinian (34%), Rüppell’s (14%) and Subalpine Warbler (5%). In the sixth and last round of the 1998 competition, 11 entrants managed to identify both mystery birds correctly: Johan Barth, Sietse Bernardus, Jan Hjort Christensen, Martin Edelman, Hannu Jännes, Timo Marijnissen, Eddy Nieuwstraten, Rudy Offereins, Øystein Ålbu, Hein Prinsen and Ignaz Wanders. From them, Johan Barth (Netherlands), Øystein Ålbu (Norway) and Ignaz Wanders (Belgium) were drawn as the winners of a copy of the video The large gulls of North America by Jon L Dunn, Larry Rosche and John W Vanderpoel, donated by Bird Images. Making no mistakes in the last round, Hannu Jännes from Finland achieved a total of 10 correct identifications, which makes him the winner of the competition. Congratulations to him! Close on his heels were Sietse Bernardus and (the only 19-year old) Timo Marijnissen with nine, Jan van der Laan and Sander Lagerveld with eight (all four Netherlands) and Jan Hjort Christensen (Denmark), Jyrki Normaja (Finland) and Dave van der Spoel (Netherlands) with seven correct identifications. A more comprehensive overview of the leadership of the competition will be given at http://www.dutchbirding.nl. Being the winner of the 1998 competition of the Masters of Mystery, Hannu will receive a pair of the popular Swarovski SLC 8x30 WB binoculars, donated by Swarovski Benelux. We would like to thank the following people for lending us their photographs or for their help in some other way during this competition: Gijsbert van der Bent, Arnoud van den Berg, Leo Boon, Enno Ebels, Hans Gebuis, Ricard Gutiérrez, Kevin Karlson, Peter de Knijff, André van Loon, Ger Meesters, Arnold Meijer, Gino Merchiers (Swarovski Benelux), Jari Peltomäki, André van der Plas, René Pop, Ray Tipper and Alex Wieland.
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