Monday, September 26, 2011

Quiz #418 (2011-3-13) Solution


Click on picture(s) for a larger view.

Solution by Tony Leukering

Though this week's quiz bird low over the water sent a few respondents into the seabirds for a solution, one managed to get unstuck from that initial assumption to get to the correct answer.

The bird is flying away from us banking hard right. We can see buff-orange wing linings, an orangish belly, and disinct white spots in the rectrices (a large one on each of the middle four tail feathers on each side). For those understanding photographic effect and posture, the long and forked tail were notable. There is only one ABA-area species that sports these features. The very long tail with very large white spots point to the bird being an adult male. I took this picture of an adult male Barn Swallow over Lily Lake, Cape May Point, Cape May Co., NJ, on 22 April 2011.

One respondent included an incorrect assessment of age/plumage directly in the answer, so that person's response was precluded from being correct for the competition. Please read the rules.

With this being the final quiz in the 3rd quarter, it is time to award the prize of a year's membership in the Colorado Field Ornithologists (one perk of which is receipt of the organization's excellent journal, Colorado Birds). Though it was a close-fought battle, Diane Porter pulled it out at the end with 12 correct answers (followed closely by Robert McNab and Marcel Such, each with 11 correct). Congratulations, Diane!

Incorrect species provided as answers:
Sooty Shearwater - 1
Heermann's Gull - 1

Congratulations to the 1 of 15 getting the quiz correct:
Devich Farbotnik
Tyler Bell
Kirk Huffstater
Pam Myers
Su Snyder
Diane Porter
Al Guarente
Ann Reichhardt
Bryan Guarente
George Cresswell
Barn Swallow
Josh Parks
Peter Wilkinson
Bobbie Tilmant
Christopher Hinkle
Thomas Hall
Marcel Such
Nick Komar
Chishun Kwong
Jim Nelson

Answer: Barn Swallow