As two commenters pointed out, this quiz idea originated at Grrl Scientist’s excellent blog, and my impetus to try it here at NN arose first from my admiration of her writing, second from the fun I’ve had playing her Mystery Bird game, and third from the discussion on Richard Grant’s infamous albatross post. Whether nominative determinism or not, I’ve been an avid birdwatcher most of my life, so Grrl’s blog is definitely one of my favorites.
I decided to post this early, so that the European NNers have a better chance of competing. Here are photographs of six birds, taken in the Port Aransas area of the Texas Gulf coast in late April. The photographer is a friend and colleague, Dr. Jim Smith. Please list at least one field mark that supports your identification of each bird.
Mystery Bird No. 1
Mystery Bird No. 2
Mystery Bird No. 3
Mystery Bird No. 4
Mystery Bird No. 5
Mystery Bird No. 6
Good luck!
I’ll have to think about prizes ….
I think number 6 is a green heron. I don’t know what a field mark is though. Erm, it looks like one?
Sounds familiar. Now we’ll just wait for John Callender to turn up with his copy of Sibley.
The first one is a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak. Fieldmarks – heavy horn-coloured bill, V-shaped red breast.
The third one is a Magnolia Warbler. Gray crown, white eye line, black streaks on yellow breast.
Number five looks like an Indigo Bunting. All blue, black wings and around the beak.
Those three off the top of my head. The others are (2) some kind of sparrow, (4) some kind of warbler, (6) some kind of heron I think, but in the interests of fair play I won’t go Googling to find out.
How should I know? I’m a palaeontologist. They’re all dinosaurs.
Oh, so that’s what a field mark is.
Ok, I lied. Googling reveals #2 (hint – not a sparrow) and #6 (tricky). #4 still has me stumped.
Got it. #4 is another warbler, but since there are approximately 50,000,000 species of warblers (plus or minus a bit), it took some digging to find out.
[ok, since I started this before I read Richard’s answers… I will just keep my ramblings]
2 and 3 look like “tättingar” (tit) and belonging to the “mes” family (Paridae) Being one of the largest “assemblies” of birds.. I am not really giving away any answers but their sharp, smaller beaks seem similar to it ;)
Obviously (ha!) I have taken some botany/zoology classes in my undergrad since I start out by comparing tails and all…. but that doesn’t lead me to the correct answer.
Åsa – your answers confuse me… :) although I was able to Google Parus caeruleus/Blåmes (I used to see these in the UK when I lived there). Is it the first one whose beak you recognize? From French (Latin?) “gros” meaning “large” I guess. It’s a type of finch.
SPOILER ALERT: don’t read the following if you’re still playing…
Number 2 is a Chestnut-Sided Warbler. Fieldmarks: chestnut coloured stripes on the sides (naturally) and yellow crown. Number 4 is a Hooded Warbler (black “hood” and prominent yellow face mask, olive back) and Number 6 looks like a Least Bittern (buff-coloured stripes down the sides and yellow bill help with this identification).
Richard Grant’s bird still might be an albatross though.
Richard> funny, my post did not look like that in my preview… hm, I guess # and 3 can’t be together like that?
the Blåmes, is the 3, which I started with. Ah well, I was wrong anyway so… who cares ;)
I’m still trying to grasp what a Warbler is… but I guess I can always look it up on wikipedia or so. * looked * I was in the right part of the family regarding the number 2 at least…
I am tempted to say that number 5 is “protecting itself from the wind” and therefore is very ruffled. Number 1 has in my opinion a “grain-eating” beak but I can’t figure out the species.
And Richard, I don’t get where you get the French and Latin ‘gros’ from….
This is a great idea! (GrrlScientist does it, too, and it’s a very popular feature.)
My first reaction to number 6 was “some kind of kingfisher”. Interesting how we all went for the water birds. That is definitely based on the shape of the beak for me (and in the case of my erroneous call, the blue feathers. Googling reminded me that the kingfisher is even more spectacular). It looks like a fish-catching beak.
The second one looks more to me like a golden-crowned sparrow. The stripy shoulders, and the yellow-topped head. I lived a while in California, so probably am wrong if it was photographed in Texas.
The third one, a tit because of the pointy short beak, and the thin delicate feet, and just the way it looks leaning over like that. Although the beak is thinner and longer than the common great tit we have around here, or the chickadee I grew up with. The grosbeak was an easier call, but not the particular one.
Asa, the robins in western Europe are some kind of flycatcher whereas in the US they seem to me a kind of thrush.
I miss my robins. And orioles, cardinals, even blue jays. (We have the Eurasian variety here, and sometimes this funny one coming through our garden – can you North Americans guess it? Not my photo, but I’ll put in the blog link soon and leave the tab open until I do.)
Hoopoe?
Åsa – I figured NN had munched the formatting of your list somehow. :)
“gros” – is a French word for “large”, is it not? As in “grosbeak”. Heather is right, it is a seed-eater (a large finch).
I don’t know if tits and warblers are related to each other – warblers being a term for a large group of passerine songbirds that are generally small and look like numbers 2 through 4.
I’m standing by my identifications – a few of these at least also appear in this part of the world at certain times of the year.
And Heather – what the HECK is that thing? It’s fabulous. It looks like a cross between a road-runner and a mourning dove.
I wish we had those here. :)
Got it. What a ridiculous bird, I love it!
[thanks Google]
Upupa epops!
a few of these at least also appear in this part of the world at certain times of the year
This is a key point, for the three warblers at least, and of course Richard Wintle has the correct answers and wins teh interbirdz, for Quiz One.
The warblers are in Family Parulidae; two (Chestnut-sided and Magnolia) are Dendroica warblers, and one (Hooded) is a Wilsonia warbler (I think). All are primarily insectivorous, and all winter in Central America, and breed in the northern US and southern Canada. Hence the three warblers pictured here are just passing through Texas on their way to Richard’s part of the world.
I’ll put a little more up about each bird this evening.
@ Cath: I think Roger Tory Peterson was the first to publish bird guides with the system of using field marks to identify birds. It seems like an obvious thing to do, but that’s because most birdwatchers alive today have known no other system.
@ Åsa: I remember the Pied Wagtail from a trip to Stockholm … Swedish name “Sadesarla”, maybe? Sorry, I know there are different characters in the spelling for that, and it’s such a pain to insert them in this stupid IE browser at work. Aaaaarghhh!
Sea gulls – all of them.
Kristi> ok, so the first one is what? I am lost with the wabler one and warblr two… I’ll just go home and eat some dinner instead :)
and yes, the wagtail ‘Sädesärla’ where the ‘ärla’ is the type of family, like tit and whatnot…. It reminds me of spring and my granmother (since she lived in the part of Sweden that got spring earlier than I did) …
anyhow, I look forward learning more about the birds in the picture! And I am generally a bit hesitant at birds up front since they are carriers of dozens of microbes ;)
Heather> That is one funny looking bird. Almost a henlike but then the beak ruins it all…
I’m stumped. But i really like the shades of blue on mystery bird 5.
prizes? ooo! coolio!
mystery birds #1: rose-breasted grosbeak, Pheucticus ludovicianus, both adult males. field marks: large pale beak, black head, rosy red on breast .. basically, these birds are “flying field marks” to my eye.
mystery bird #2: chestnut-sided warbler, Dendroica pensylvanica, adult male. again, the field marks are unique: the combination of the yellow cap, bright white breast, and rust-colored streaks down the sides next to and underneath the wings. these birds are simply stunning, one of my favorite 10,000 bird species to look at.
mystery bird #3: yellow-rumped warbler, Dendroica coronata, adult male. this is the first species of bird that i drew and painted from living individuals, so i’ll never forget it. this individual is the western form, commonly known as “Audubon’s race”, because of its bright yellow throat (“Myrtle’s race” have a pale cream colored throat). both forms of this species ar often referred to as “butter butts” for obvious reasons.
mystery bird #4: hooded warbler, Wilsonia citrina, another adult male in bright plumage, of course. the black bib and hood are distinctive to this species. so brilliantly colored that they can make your eyes bleed when viewed under bright light.
mystery bird #5: indigo bunting, Passerina cyanea, adult male. field marks: short, thick bill, bright blue coloring with dark greyish-black wings with a paler underwing area. no other bird has this combination of coloring, although one might possibly confuse this species with the much larger mountain bluebird, except mountain bluebirds lack greyish-black on their wings, and their beaks are longer and have a different overall shape (and they also have rictal bristles).
mystery bird #6: green heron, Butorides virescens, adult plumage. sometimes referred to as the “green-backed heron”, this is actually one representative of a species complex consisting of poorly differentiated sub(?)species. it can be mixed up with an american bittern, i suppose, but american bitterns are noticeably larger and they have an overall golden glow about them, and they lack the dark head.
GrrlScientist
Bird(s) No. 1 is the Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus).
Bird No. 2 is the Chestnut-sided Warbler (Dendroica pensylvanica).
Bird No. 3 is the Magnolia Warbler (Dendroica magnolia).
Bird No. 4 is the Hooded Warbler (Wilsonia citrina).
Bird No. 5 is the Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea).
Bird No. 6 is the Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis).
The Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the Indigo Bunting are in Family Cardinalidae, and feed on seeds, fruit, and insects; I’ll have some more members of this family to identify in a later post. The term “bunting” was used rather loosely by early American naturalists, and the Cardinalidae buntings are not closely related to Emberizine buntings (e.g. Snow Bunting).
The Wood-Warbler family Parulidae also includes Redstarts, Waterthrushes, Ovenbirds, and Parulas.
The only non-passerine bird in the group is the Least Bittern, in Family Ardeidae, along with herons and egrets. The following is from A.C. Bent’s Life Histories of North American Marsh Birds:
“… even when some small piece of marsh is making its last stand against the encroachment of civilization, the bitterns and rails may still be found there, attending strictly to their own business, coming and going under the cover of darkness and unmindful of their outside surroundings.”
Rather like, errr, Hobbits. Bitterns are known for their ability to hide motionless in the reeds and cattails, with the beak pointed straight upwards. Apparently John J. Audubon kept a young Least Bittern as a pet.
Is there a Most Bittern too?
…and we thank you. Cath – I believe it’s called a Mondo Bittern or something. :P
We need sonograms for the vocalizations of Parrots and Carrots to be sure.
As the winner of the first bird quiz, Richard W. should receive a prize. He already has more Jethro Tull albums than I do, so I’m thinking that an avian-themed snail mail art item, created by yours truly, might be an option. Of course this will require:
We can be rather backwards here sometimes. :-P
That is fabulous, Kristi, and I thank you. I shall be emailing you shortly with a detailed set of instructions how to
circumventnegotiate the inevitable border issues between Texas and the True North Strong And Free™.We get Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks here too – beautiful things. Haven’t seen one in the years I’ve been living in or close to Toronto though – they were frequent visitors where I grew up in Kingston (other end of Lake Ontario).
It seems that we actually get all six of these species here at different times of year, although I’ve never seen either an Indigo Bunting or the bittern (but I believe that bitterns are notoriously shy – so well done to Jim Smith for getting such a nice picture!).
Hehe – the hoopoe spotters were right. But you can imagine my astonishment when I first saw one in my backyard. Quite a lovely blog, by the way, and there’s a little hoopoe in the logo, too. Congrats to the proper birders among you! good eye for observation, what.
I saw a hoopoe in Israel once, and my jaw just dropped. It was strolling around quite nonchalantly, as if it had a perfect right to be there or something…
You know, if I had a crest like that, I’d stroll around nonchalantly too, and let all the other birds be jealous.
Oh, and jumping way back in the comments, the pied wagtail is a very attractive little bird – I saw several on the Sanger grounds a couple of years ago. Very cute.
Did somebody mention wagtails?
Grrlscientist has been doing this since forever. How lame is it to just duplicate her schtick?
@ BB: That’s a very good point, and I will amend my post accordingly. I did get the idea from her (and I often play her Mystery Bird game, under a pseudonym), and in fact I composed my quiz in responsive a discussion on Richard Grant’s infamous albatross post, in which I wrote the following-
Well, I have only the one photograph to go on for this. When Grrl Scientist posts her “Mystery Birds” for identification (which is the best game going on Science Blogs, IMHO), she doesn’t reappear in the comments with “no the wings, which you can’t see, are a different shape”. The commenters might disagree about the field marks, but they all are working from the same photo
That discussion was, of course, localized to NN, and I apologize for not making the explicit link to Grrl Scientist’s idea. Sorry for the delayed response, but I can’t post or alter my posts while I’m at work. I’ll change it now, and link to Grrl’s blog as well.
I think you guys are being a bit militant. Grrl Scientist, while she may do this regularly, didn’t invent the “spot the bird” trivia game, any more than I invented the blog comment. She may very well be the most-read and most popular proponent of it on a blog on the internet, but that’s hardly intellectual property, is it?
And I’d mention that if anyone had bothered to also read the comments, I had pointed toward GrrlScientist’s regular feature, complete with links, a full day before PP’s rather aggressive comment. Nature is wide and beautiful and there are plenty of birds to go around. How lame is it to jump down Kristi’s throat like that?
BBC Wildlife magazine ran this kind of competition 20 years ago, and I’m sure they weren’t the first either.