Quiz #439 (2012-1-09) Solution

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Solution by Tony Leukering

A slim, grayish sparrow pops up on a branch and gives you the once-over and departs, never to be seen again. Did you get the critical details to identify the bird? The near-lack of field marks gave it away to quite a few. The overall slimness and slim bill points to the Spizella sparrows and the thin-based, long tail keeps us there. Upon arriving at the correct genus, we can eliminate American Tree, Field, and Black-chinned sparrows (and Worthen's Sparrow) by various features, with the primary of these being bill color and pattern and the streaked crown. That leaves us with a trio of species that cause no end of consternation to birders, due to the similarity of various plumages: Chipping, Clay-colored, and Brewer's.

Even the dullest of Clay-colored Sparrows should show more color below than is shown by the quiz bird, while even the dullest of immatures should show a stronger face pattern. Additionally, Clay-colored is the shortest-tailed of the three, and this feature is at least occasionally useful. Chipping Sparrow, though confusable with both of the others, sports a character that is a deal-breaker for this bird -- the strong blackish eyeline that extends, at least, behind the eye, and often well in front of the eye. Regardless, the eyeline is always present enough to split the eye ring, at least behind the eye, a feature not present on the quiz bird.

Many Brewer's Sparrow show something of a whitish central crown stripe, but this bird's is just pale gray. Steve Mlodinow took this picture of an immature (note the differing coloration of the inner vs. outer greater coverts) Brewer's Sparrow in Weld Co., CO, on 11 September 2011.

One respondent's answer was considered incorrect for the competition as it included an incorrect estimate of age directly in the answer. Please, please, please read the rules and keep any estimate of age, sex, subspecies, and whatever else separate from the answer of species.

Incorrect species provided as answers:
Clay-colored Sparrow -5
Chipping Sparrow -3

Congratulations to the 25 of 33 getting the quiz correct:
Ben Coulter
Tyler Bell
Patty McKelvey
Bill Blackburn
George Cresswell
Chris Warren
Thomas Hall
Christian Nunes
Pam Myers
Logan Kahle
Gary Koehn
Josh Yoder
Margaret Smith
Aaron Brees
Marcel Such
Joel Such
Burke Angstman
Megan Miller
Sean Walters
Diane Porte
Nick Komar
Margie Joy
David Elwonger
Stuart Hoppe
Chishun Kwong

Answer: Brewer's Sparrow

Quiz #438 (2012-1-08) Solution

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Solution by Tony Leukering

Half of the respondents to this week's quiz submitted the right species, the other half split their answers among eight species, a sure sign that the photo made for a difficult quiz. For a view such as provided in the picture, I find birders tend to identify on impression, which can be amazingly accurate... but which can take a birder quite astray. For such a view, careful study on a feature-by-feature basis may confirm or reject that first impression; perhaps a scope view would serve for confirming such study.

This distant quiz bird is perched in a conifer (of the cedar/cypress/juniper ilk) in somewhat low light, so we'll have to look carefully at it. As noted by most respondents, the bird appears "flycatchery," with its bill not too long, not too short, not too thick, not too thin (apparently, it's juuusstt right), though it could be a large warbler (note the size relative to the conifer parts). Though I can see the following features on the image as is, enlargement makes the various important characters more obvious: gray upperparts that are apparently unmarked, a vague pale wing bar created by pale fringes to one row or another of the coverts, pale fringes to the tertials, a white patch on throat and below eye that is distinctly set off from a vague black mask or eyeline and the rest of the gray head, gray chest of about the same tone as the upperparts, and yellowish on the belly; the poorly-lit tail simply looks dark.

While we might consider a variety of flycatcher options, the kingbirds is really the only group hosting species matching most of these features. Once there, the combination of characters noted reduces our options to one. I took this picture of a Cassin's Kingbird at Goleta, Santa Barbara Co., CA, on 28 February 2009. With the recent re-arrangement of the leader board, our resident Brit, Peter Wilkinson, holds sole possession of first place with 8 of 8 this quarter (and year) that will see 12 quizzes.

Incorrect species provided as answers:
Gray Jay - 1
Western Kingbird - 5
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 3
Grace's Warbler - 1
Vermilion Flycatcher - 1
Sage Sparrow - 1
Eastern Phoebe - 1
Willow Flycatcher - 1

Congratulations to the 14 of 28 getting the quiz correct:
Chris Warren
Logan Kahle
Christian Nunes
Nick Komar
Jeff Witters
Thomas Hall
Ben Coulter
Aaron Brees
Bill Blackburn
Robert McNab
Devich Farbotnik
Peter Wilkinson
Joe Bens
James Kopitzke

Answer: Cassin's Kingbird