Birding New Jersey! » Quizzes

Your Birding Ancestry

Rick Wright — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:12:43 +0000

One of the most interesting questions in modern birding is that of intellectual heritage: How and by whom are birding knowledge, culture, and ethics passed down?

Help me think about this by answering two easy questions:

1. Who was your birding mentor?

2. Who was that person’s birding mentor?

You may need to talk to the answer to the first before you can answer the second. But it will be worth it.

A Coot and a Quiz

Rick Wright — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:33:42 +0000

I’ll admit to a fondness of all things coot, and Eurasian Coot is surely one of the most elegant of the genus.

They’re no less fractious than their American cousins, of course, but still, a beautiful sight when they’re floating, peaceful for the moment, on a lovely little park pond.

Here’s a good quiz: can you find half a dozen visual differences between the bird in the photo and American Coot? Bet you can.

Quiz

Rick Wright — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:57:04 +0000

Most birding quizzes ask you to identify a photo.

Not this one.

What do you think this is? (No googling!)

Superciliary space, suborbital and malar regions, greater part of auricular region, chin, and throat very pale bluish gray; a loral patch (extending more or less broadly across base of forehead), narrow postocular streak, and a black collar beginning on nape (beneath crest) and extending thence downward across end of auricular region and along side of neck and connecting with a broader, somewhat crescentic patch across chest, black.

The answer is here.

Coues, In a Lighter Vein

Rick Wright — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:08:33 +0000

I’ve been re-reading Elliot Coues’s Key, in the 1903 edition, and find myself alternately shaking my head in admiring wonder and laughing out loud in delight. It truly is the best bird book ever written, and if you haven’t read it, make immediate amends.

Here’s a quiz. Of what bird did Coues write:

Very erratic and capricious in its movements–surprises are always in order…until brought to the table on toast…and even then the bill is likely to be a surprise, if it is presented in a fashionable restaurant.

The first correct answer left as a comment here at the B-log wins a half day’s guided birding this summer in southeast Arizona.

NO GOOGLING ALLOWED! But if you do google it, you’ll find one of the greatest examples of blatant plagiarism in the history of North American ornithology.

How About a Quiz?

Rick Wright — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:01:43 +0000

How about sex, age…and subspecies?

Click for a bigger image.

March 26, 2010; Vancouver, BC.

So What Is It?

Rick Wright — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:45:42 +0000

I’m embarrassed to admit that I still have no idea what the bird in the upper left of this month’s Birding photo quiz could be. In my early notes I called it a Eurasian Wigeon–which it clearly is not–and in the final version, I just gave up. Who can solve the puzzle?

Bronzed Cowbird

Rick Wright — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:43:05 +0000

Bronzed Cowbirds are scarce in southeast Arizona in the dead of winter, but there are always a few here and there at such favored sites as the Benson sewage ponds or the University of Arizona farms here in Tucson. The icterid flock at Lakeside Park had at least three individuals on Saturday, huddled in the trees or patrolling the chilly lawns with the abundant Brewer’s and Red-winged Blackbirds, Great-tailed Grackles, and Brown-headed Cowbirds.

: As usual, just click for a larger version of the image.

All of the Lakeside birds were brown, but as Darlene pointed out, the extravagant ruffs–especially well visible in the original quiz image–suggested that they were first-winter males rather than females. My library is divided right now between Vancouver and Tucson, so I haven’t been able to check into the plumage sequences of this species; it’ll be nice to reunite the books someday!

A Quiz Bird

Rick Wright — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:35:35 +0000

Seen yesterday in Tucson, in the loose company of Common Goldeneye, Western Bluebird, and Cassin’s Finch.

Like most quizzes, it’s easy once you know what it is.

New Trivia Question

Rick Wright — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:13:50 +0000

Have a look at the new WINGS Newsletter and see what you think of this month’s trivia question. Leave your answer at The Wingbeat for the chance to win a WINGS cap (they’re very nice).

I’m offering no hints, but will say that the answer is perhaps less obvious than you might think.

An Odd Duck

Rick Wright — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:57:54 +0000

Ideas?

I’m puzzled myself. There are a couple more photos here.

January 4, 2010: Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver, BC