Quiz #327 (2009-4-09) Answer

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Answer by Margie Joy and Tony Leukering

Most repondents spotted that this week's quiz birds were grackles and that the task was to pick the right species, with the vast majority going with one of the two of what I call "big-boy grackles." Margie Joy will start off the solution.

"Even in the dim light of this photo, with birds mainly in silhouette, there are enough clues for ID. Several of the birds have the large, flared tails of male grackles, and there’'s just enough light to show that they are all consistently dark or even black with no obvious marks, and that the eyes are light.

"There are three grackle species in the ABA area: Common, Great-tailed, and Boat-tailed. Following the advice of one of my drawing teachers (play it like the SAT -- do the easiest part first), I looked at the most obvious individuals, the ones with large, flared tails that are at least the length of the body. I ruled out Common Grackle, with its proportionately smaller tail, for those birds. Flattish heads with heavy bills eliminate Boat-tailed Grackle (a species with some individuals, but not all, having dark eyes, so separation by eye color is not reliable as we were not given the location), leaving me with male Great-tailed.

"The smaller birds with not-so-large tails are a bit more difficult; I'm still not 100 percent convinced about all of them. In general, they are smaller than the males, with shorter and narrower tails, typical of female grackles. I think they're all still too big to be Common, so the trick is to decide if they are Great-tailed, like the males; or Boat-tailed; or a mix of both. I can't see the entire head on all of them, but the ones I do see share the flattish head and thick bill shape of the males. So, I am going with Great-tailed Grackle for all."

Good job, Margie! As Kevin Kerr noted, the female in the lower-left quadrant with something in her bill is the individual that we can see best. She sports a
superciliary that helps us to eliminate Common Grackle in her ID and she has the streamlined head shape so typical of Great-tailed and so at odds with the round-headed appearance of Boat-tailed Grackle. Though folks on the East Coast think that Boat-tailed is a big grackle, my recent experience of switching between Colorado and New Jersey gave me a much better feel for the differences between the two big-boy grackles, including the much larger size of Great-tailed. So, if there is a Boat-tailed Grackle in the picture, it should appear noticeably smaller and none of the birds looks smaller to my eye. Additionally, as I took the picture near Barr Lake, Adams Co., CO (in December 2006), any Boat-tailed would have provided a first state record!

With two quizzes to go in the quarterly competition, Kevin Kerr is tied with the
two Such brothers with perfect scores (9 of 9). Six others have 7 of 9 correct;
none have only 8 correct.

Incorrect species provided as answers:
Common Grackle - 3
Boat-tailed Grackle - 5
Black-billed Magpie - 1
Common Raven - 1

The 17 of 26 providing the correct answer:
Al Guarente
Kevin Kerr
Andy Dettling
Mark Dettling
George Cresswell
Lynnette Fuller
Ray Davis
Margie Joy
Robert McNab
Su Snyder
Barbara Deneen
Nick Komar
Joe Bens
Tucker Lutter
Aaron Brees
Marcel Such
Joel Such

Answer: Great-tailed Grackle

Quiz #326 (2009-4-08) Answer

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Answer by Tony Leukering

An obvious shorebird, with some important bits invisible: yet another typical Mr. Bill Mystery Quiz. The fuzziness of the picture might not help, either. A first task, after (of course) getting to shorebirds, might be to decide whether it's a larger one or a smaller one. As noted by a couple of respondents, the bird's proportions -- large, chunky body, thin neck, apparently smallish head -- should rule out the peeps (and isn't it nice to not have to deal with the Least Sandpiper/Long-toed Stint dichotomy!) and suggest a larger shorebird of some type. Though many birders would not even try to ID this bird in this posture, we've actually got a lot to go on and can quickly whittle things down to just a few options.

First, there aren't many larger shorebirds with such yellow legs and one of the usual large, buffy shorebirds that comes to mind, Marbled Godwit, is easily ruled out by the leg color. In fact, just utilizing leg color and overall color tone, we might consider only Pectoral, Sharp-tailed, Buff-breasted, and Stilt sandpipers; Ruff; and Wilson's Phalarope. We can quickly rule out Buff-breasted Sandpiper and Wilson's Phalarope, as those two species do not probe, but pick bits of food from the water's surface and/or land. Additional plumage features rule these two species out: lack of black spots at shoulder and dark-centered, rather than gray-centered, scapulars, among others.

Hopefully, no one would confuse our quiz bird with an adult Stilt Sandpiper, but some juvs can be this buffy and the species should be considered. Oops, we should already have considered age! The plethora of buff feather fringes should be all we need to decide that our bird is a juvenile, unless its a Ruff, as some adults sport such fringes, too. But, such birds would not have such a buffy throat and neck, so, regardless, our bird is a juvenile. At this point, we should, perhaps, throw Short-billed Dowitcher into the mix.

Returning to Stilt Sandpiper, even the buffiest-bodied juvs would sport white-fringed lower scapulars. Also, even with much of the bird's head in the water, we see enough of it to see that Stilt Sandpiper's obvious whitish superciliary is not present. Also, the legs have just too much orange aspect for that species. Despite tossing Short-billed Dowitcher into the mix in the previous paragraph, I'm going to quickly throw it back out, as our quiz bird lacks that species' whitish superciliary and would sport more and more-obvious internal markings on the scapulars and tertials.

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper should sport a quite-reddish crown and more-reddish feather fringes on the top side. Pectoral Sandpiper exhibits stronger blackish streaking on the throat and chest than does our quiz bird.

Whoa, lo and behold, we've eliminated all possibilities but one. Sean Fitzgerald took this week's quiz photo of a juvenile Ruff at Edwin B. Forsythe (Brigantine) N.W.R., Atlantic Co., NJ, on 8 October 2008.

One of the incorrect responses would have been considered precluded from being correct for the competition if it had been correct, as it included one too few hyphens and one too many capital letters.

Incorrect species provided as answers:
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper - 1
Buff-breasted Sandpiper - 2
Wilson's Phalarope - 2
Long-billed Dowitcher - 1
Stilt Sandpiper - 4

The 14 of 24 providing the correct answer:
John Bissell
Mark Dettling
Peter Wilkinson
Al Guarente
Peter Burke
Kevin Kerr
Nick Komar
Ira Sanders
Tammy Sanders
Marcel Such
Joe Bens
Tucker Lutter
Robert McNab
Joel Such

Answer: Ruff