Quiz #358 (2010-3-03) Solution

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Answer by Tony Leukering

A raptor perched on the ground right next to a railroad track is this week's quiz bird. We cannot see the bird's underparts, which probably threw off all of those getting the incorrect answer. But, we don't really need them, if we pay close attention to the field marks on the upperparts, and one very useful one on the underparts, that we can see.

Peter Wilkinson, who got the correct answer, wondered if I was trying to make quiz takers think of falcons, due to our bird's long wings, which extend beyond the tail tip. My answer is, "not consciously," but that was one feature that I was going to expouse upon. It does have long wings and the visible primaries are quite black, contrasting strongly with the rest of the wing that is visible. With a view from above of this bird in flight, we would see a fairly distinctly bicolored wing, dark hand and browner arm. Also note that the bird has at least two ages of secondaries, thus it is not a juvenile. The age is relevant, as the tail pattern means a bit more since most juvenile raptors that might be confused with our quiz bird have banded tails, but don't as adults.

The large falcons generally have tapered tails inconsistent with the quiz bird's. The deck feathers (yes, Peter, the raptor community on this side of the Pond does use the term) -- the central rectrices -- are broad and rounded on our bird, another feature at least somewhat inconsistent with a falcon ID. The strong pale fringes to all of the upperparts feathers should rule out all of the kites that might be considered.

With the above, we'll probably have to look among the buteos for a solution. With that, the face pattern becomes quite critical. Only two buteos typically show such well demarcated white foreheads and chin/throat: Short-tailed and Swainson's. Our bird is really too patterned above for Short-tailed and, despite the species' namesake, the short wings still don't protrude beyond the tail tip. Additionally, raise your hands all who have actually seen a perched Short-tailed Hawk! I haven't, though, of course, they do partake of that activity. I took this picture of an adult Swainson's Hawk along Hwy 138 in Logan Co., CO, on 19 June 2010.

One respondent neglected the possessive aspect of the species' name, so the answer was precluded from being correct for the competition. Three pictures into the new quarter, there are seven tied at the head of the class with perfect scores.

Incorrect species provided as answers:
Short-tailed Hawk - 2
Mississippi Kite - 1
Ferruginous Hawk - 1
Gyrfalcon - 1

Congratulations to the 16 of 21 getting the quiz correct:
Tyler Bell
Chuck Carlson
Claire Mix
Margaret Smith
Thomas Hall
Robert McNab
Kevin Kerr
Gary Koehn
Kirk Huffstater
Peter Wilkinson
Chris Warren
Joel Such
Su Snyder
Kyle Huffstater
Bryan Guarente
Joe Bens

Answer: Swainson's Hawk

Quiz #357 (2010-3-02) Solution

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Answer by Tony Leukering

Almost all respondents got our quiz bird to the genus Icterus, the orioles. The strongly bicolored (black maxilla, blue mandible) bill is the single best clue to get there, once one rules out the Passerina buntings (including Blue Grosbeak). That bill color also helps us eliminate one oriole option, Altamira, but that species doesn't have a yellowish or greenish plumage at all, so it's out the door, anyway.

The overall impression of the bird's bright coloration is that of a yellow/green/orange, but with a distinctly dark back and two whitish wing bars. These features rule out four of the ten ABA-area orioles, leaving Orchard, Hooded, Streak-backed, Bullock's, Audubon's, Baltimore, and Scott's.

At this point, ageing the wee beastie might assist with identification, so let's tackle that. One of the more notable aspects of the quiz bird's plumage is the wear that is so evident on the head (the crown is mostly gray!) and in the wings: they're really brown and with the wingbars in fairly sad shape. Unless the picture was taken in late summer, this amount of wear would suggest an immature bird in its second calendar year. Looking closely at the greater coverts, we can see that at least some of the outer ones have centers noticeably darker than the paler and browner inner coverts, another good clue to immaturity. Finally, the bird's tail provides a similar clue, as the outermost rectrix on each side is more rounded, grayer, and sports an obvious and unworn white fringe to the tip than are the rest of the rectrices. Checking into Pyle (1997), we find that the pre-formative molt (called therein the first pre-basic; but terminology of these molts changed after the publication of the book, so...) in this species (I won't say, yet, what that species is) is eccentric, with an odd and variable variety of flight feathers replaced. That certainly matches our bird, so we can safely presume that this is a first-cycle female, as a similarly-aged male of the various orioles still in contention would have some male-like aspect (specifically, black on the throat) in late spring/early summer -- and the picture has to have been taken at this time from the plumage's appearance.

Our bird's back can help us to eliminate another few species, Streak-backed, Baltimore, and Scott's, as, if anything, it is barred, not streaked. Studying the face allows us to rule out Bullock's, as the brightest plumage there is behind the auriculars, not in the front of the face as it should be on Bullock's. Another character assists with that elimination: the pale edges of the secondaries. On Bullock's, these edges extend all the way to the greater coverts, whereas our bird's edges do not. There is a gap similar to that that allows quick separation of Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Hutton's Vireo, though not quite as obvious as on the kinglet. Quite fortuitously, this feature also eliminates Hooded Oriole, leaving us with the correct ID.

I took this picture of an immature female Orchard Oriole at Jumbo Res., Logan Co., CO, on 19 June 2010. Though virtually every respondent that got down to the Orchard:Hooded dichotomy got the correct species, few of those told me how they got there, so I don't know what features that most used to get the correct answer. I still think that most birders greatly underappreciate how difficult females of these two species can be to identify. Success in the endeavor requires careful scrutiny of a number of features, some of which can be difficult to assess correctly. Maybe I'll run a string of pictures of the two species for the next few quizzes, just to see how things go! Maybe not.

Incorrect species provided as answers:
"Yellow finch" - 1
Scott's Oriole - 1
Hooded Oriole - 1
Baltimore Oriole - 1
Bay-breasted Warbler - 1

Congratulations to the 18 of 23 getting the quiz correct:
Tyler Bell
Chuck Carlson
Nick Komar
Louie Toth
Joel Such
Richard Jeffers
Kirk Huffstater
Kyle Huffstater
George Cresswell
Al Guarente
Peter Wilkinson
Chris Warren
Joe Bens
Marcel Such
Margie Joy
Thomas Hall
Margaret Smith
Su Snyder

Answer: Orchard Oriole