Recently in Bird ID Quizzes Category

Well I was hoping it wouldn't come to this but since the twits at my ISP can't seem to ship a modem in less than 5 days in this modern era (let alone the time it will actually take to get from them to me) I am going to skip the quiz this week (I'm typing this now from a motel parking lot). Last week's answer is Hooded Warbler.

If I'm lucky I'll have a modem Wednesday and I can get back to business as usual.

Now that I have had a chance to vent about that, my anger at the ISP is at least tempered by the fact that I was offered the winter position here at Bryce that I had applied for - and that makes me very happy!

This has been the week from hell where I have been spending most of my non-working waking hours with my computer preparing last night's Ranger Talk. Other than a short session with ground-squirrels and chipmunks outside my trailer on Tuesday, I have been immersed in creating that PowerPoint presentation. My brain is just fried and since I've slacked on this and two days late we'll skip this quiz for this week and get going again next Friday. The last quiz was a Red Knot, a species that I am quite fond of and that I found out a few days later is still having serious problems with a shrinking population. Hopefully we'll see another attempt to get listed as endangered - though I doubt it considering the criminals in the current administration that are doing such a bang-up job these days.

The "Ranger Talk" last night that I spent so much time on was Birdwatching Basics and I'll be getting ready here in a couple of minutes to take some folks on a birdwatching hike here at the park. This will be my third in the last 8 days; the birding is tough here at times, but Friday morning we had a Plumbeous Vireo foraging and singing in a small Ponderosa Pine at eye level and "no binoculars necessary" close range. It was pretty cool.

To paraphrase Kenn Kaufmann in Kingbird Highway, "Any day could be a special day when their is a Painted Bunting in your yard" and this female Painted Bunting - the answer to last week's quiz - made one of my Spring days a special one a while back.

For this week we have one of Florida's winter residents, a rather nondescript little bird that I can almost always find in a city park - just as I did with this one a couple of days ago.

Since I am now back in Florida this week's quiz bird was always one of my favorite yard birds. Just about the only place in the state you might be lucky enough to see one this time of year would be The Everglades but in a few months they will be winging their way north again (you might find them later in Texas, too).

Last week's bird was a little confusing for me at first because when I looked at field marks one of the differences was the streaking on the breast and I had a little difficulty seeing a major difference that would allow me to say with absolute certainty. The field mark I found to be most relevant was the bill: The Brown Thrasher's lower mandible is light with the upper mandible dark or black while the bird in the photo - a Long-billed Thrasher - has a bill that is dark on both mandibles. Upper feather color would be a good indicator as well but quite often you will find thrashers lurking in the shadows and understories around trees and bushes. Ling-billed will be less rufous than Brown Thrasher when observed in good light.

The correct answer for last week's quiz would be female Ring-necked Duck. The easiest and best way for me to identify this bird was by looking at the bill. Surprisingly there were a couple of them on the same pond with white heads and I have often wondered if they were from the same brood.

This week's bird is a Rio Grande Valley specialty so take out your field guides and good luck!

If your answer to last week's quiz (#24) was "Brewer's Sparrow" then you were correct.

This week's quiz might be a little trickier since we have a partially albinistic individual that I photographed around this time last year in Florida. Still, there are some field marks that should lead you in the right direction.

Good luck and have fun!

The answer to last week's quiz is Abert's Towhee. This week we'll keep it in the family (Emberizidae), though this week's little bird from Whitewater Draw is not a Towhee.

Good luck!