Monday, November 1, 2010

Quiz #372 (2010-4-05) Solution


Click on picture(s) for a larger view.

Answer by Tony Leukering

"It took me two days to even SEE the bird!" -- Chris Warren

As I sit here listening to The Outlaws' "Green Grass & High Tides," after a full week of extra-high tides here in Cape May due to the gigantic low sitting to our north, I note that the critical feature of this week's quiz was not, particularly, identifying the bird, but simply finding it. Even those that provided an incorrect answer that actually found the bird, may not have actually SEEN the bird. One incorrect respondent SAW the bird just one day too late, and to paraphrase his comments, once he SAW it, it was easy.

The picture below is the same picture as the quiz photo, just cropped out of the very top-left corner, where the only bird in the picture resided. Yes, this would normally have been a throw-away, but right before I clicked on the garbage can, I thought, "That will make an excellent photo quiz!"


In this version of the quiz photo, we can readily see the distinctive tail pattern of American Redstart, along with the wing stripe created by the yellow bases of the remiges. I took the picture from the "Dike" at Higbees Beach SWA, Cape May Co., NJ, in early September 2010.

Incorrect species provided as answers:
Townsend's Solitaire - 1
European Starling - 1
Bushtit - 1
hummingbird, sp. - 1
Baltimore Oriole - 1

Congratulations to the 15 of 20 getting the quiz correct:
Robert McNab
Tyler Bell
Richard Jeffers
Margaret Smith
Ben Coulter
Pam Myers
Tom Takano
Christian Nunes
Jim Nelson
Margie Joy
Chris Warren
Chishun Kwong
Bryan Guarente
Joel Such
Marcel Such

Answer: American Redstart