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GAME: name that bird!


Jochen

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@Geoff I did give mine away with that last clue, I suppose I could've waited a bit longer as I don't suppose there are too many more blue flycatchers named after islands.

 

White-chinned petrel would be my guess.

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9 hours ago, inyathi said:

I did give mine away with that last clue, I suppose I could've waited a bit longer as I don't suppose there are too many more blue flycatchers named after islands.

 

@inyathi  Well I had considered Hainan blue flycatcher initially but due to the mention of it being near India I disregarded it.

 

Yep, White-chinned Petrel it is. I posted that bird due to its large distribution as it can be seen off Africa, Australia, Sth America

 

Over to you again :) ...  

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@kittykat23uk really gave me that one, once it was clear it was petrel, with the black ruled out it had to be white-chinned, when I looked at the distribution map and saw that it’s found right around the south coast of Australia and also South Africa and Namibia I knew I’d got the right one. I figured that you’ve probably done a pelagic boat trip or two either from home or in Southern Africa so would very likely have seen white-chinned petrel.    

 

Because everyone loves an LBJ here’s another one, this one though shouldn’t be quite as difficult as my earlier one, indeed it might be a little too easy ;)

 

34292117634_ebe5dd0298_o.jpg 

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Dave Williams

Hey Dude, (don't let me down),Dune Lark ?

 

Sorry couldn't resist the lyrics!

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@Dave Williams Yes, like I said a little too easy, it is dune lark which is a species endemic to Namibia this one was somewhere not far from Elim Dune just near Sesriem, looks like I'll have to pick another hard one next time.

 

Over to you. 

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kittykat23uk

LOL well, I had considered white-chinned but couldn't see a white chin on that bird, the other species I was considering was Westland Petrel.  Given where @Geoff was based I thought he might have given us a relatively local bird. So I would have been wrong with a second guess too. In fact I have seen white-chinned myself on a pelagic in South Africa, which is why I discounted it!  Oh well!! :D 

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42 minutes ago, kittykat23uk said:

LOL well, I had considered white-chinned but couldn't see a white chin on that bird

 

Yep, that was the sneaky bit, as the white chin was absent in that individual I thought it would make people second guess.

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Dave Williams

Well I could have continued with Beatles lyrics but Blackbird seemed a bit too easy. This one has tenuous links...extra prize points if you can work it out

Mystery bird.jpg

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offshorebirder

Drat!   I take a day off and a pelagic tubenose gets posted.

 

So it goes.

 

Nice photo @Geoff.

 

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Dave Williams

Nobody seems to be having a go so I'll give you the tenuous Beatles connection. She was one of the first artists to sign for the Beatles Apple label, Paul McCartney produced her first hit and wrote her second hit but it's the B side on the latter that is the clue. 

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I'm not a Mary Hopkin fan. 

 

Umm,  yellow-throated petronia (sparrow)

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Dave Williams

Neither am I @Geoff but the clue worked... you are on the right track. The photo was deliberately chosen as it doesn't look very Sparrow like.

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Dave Williams

Ok, time for more clues, it an endemic to the country where it's found which has been much in the news recently linked to the North Korea nuclear weapon crisis as well as talk of future presedential elections.

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Well, I was pretty sure it was Zapata Sparrow (Cuba) until your last clue, as I don't see how that has anything to do with North Korea.

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Dave Williams

@janzinSpot on with the bird but maybe my clue was misleading for those who weren't about for the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis , the last time there was a major standoff involving nuclear threats. Raul Castro is to hand over the reins of power soon too.

This shot was taken in the Zapata National Park which is on the Bay of Pigs where the failed invasion of Cuba by the USA too place in 1961 and probably was the reason for the later missile crisis.

Geography/history/music and birding in my attempt to make the quiz more interesting! 

You don't have to follow suit.

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Towlersonsafari

 

Quote

This shot was taken in the Zapata National Park which is on the Bay of Pigs where the failed invasion of Cuba by the USA too place in 1961 and probably was the reason for the later missile crisis.

@Dave Williams wow i did not realise you had that much power-to nearly cause World War 3 just by taking a bird photo!-its a nice shot mind....

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Dave Williams
2 hours ago, Towlersonsafari said:

 

@Dave Williams wow i did not realise you had that much power-to nearly cause World War 3 just by taking a bird photo!-its a nice shot mind....

 

Bit early a tipple isn't it!?

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okay, now I get the connection but its a bit of a stretch :)  Well, give me a bit to come up with a bird...back soon!

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okay have a go at this LBJ. I'll wait a bit to see if we need hints.

 

mysterybird.jpg.d02038fbd6cf0517821b8ec4b3e0e7ed.jpg

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@Janzin The plant suggested to me that this might possibly be in the Andes and therefore which bird book to go for, after quickly flicking through the right part I came across the plumbeous sierra finch so I am going to suggest that this is a female plumbeous sierra finch. I'm slightly amazed that I just picked up a book and almost immediately found what might be the right answer especially with an LBJ, because I didn't really get anywhere at all with the last one.

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@inyathi WOW indeed you are correct, and I am really surprised you got that so fast, and before I even had a chance to give some hints! I thought it would be a stumper because the female is so different than the male and also the name of the bird describes the male but certainly not the female.  Also, not that many of ST'ers have been to the Andes, I don't think. I guess I should have cropped out the plant, that was the giveaway!

 

Well back to you!

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Dave Williams

I struggle with the birds, the plants would offer no clues to me at all. @inyathi I'm impressed!

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@janzin I'm quite surprised as well given the trouble I had recently with what should have been some much easier birds. 

 

@Dave Williams thanks, I couldn’t begin to name the actual plant but it just looked like a high-altitude sort of plant and reminded me more of the Andes than other mountains, that’s mainly I suspect from wildlife documentaries, but I have been to the Andes though not seriously high but high enough and having checked my list I have seen this bird. I knew when I first saw it that it was a type finch but definitely not an African one, so it was really a combination of the look of the plant and the bird that pointed me to South America and the Andes, of course on top of that I know that Janzin has travelled a lot in South America. 

 

After the number of times I’ve looked at what I think is a decent photo and thought well it’s not going to fly away so this shouldn’t be too difficult and then I’ve gone through the right book several times and concluded that the bird isn’t in it, so I’m amazed that I found this especially as I was looking in the Birds of Northern South America which doesn’t have the best illustrations. Remarkably however, the illustration looks just like your photo, as soon as I saw it I thought that’s got to be it, so perhaps I should revise my opinion of what constitutes a good illustration.

 

One thing I’ve learned from playing this game is you can always predict for certain, which birds are going to be really hard and which ones are going to be too easy.

 

Have a go at this one. 

14113092891_1eac4a39a5_o.jpg 

 

 

 

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I will take a wild guess of Ashy-headed Laughing Thrush although the eye doesn't look quite right.

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@Janzin There’s a definite resemblance but no it’s not that.

 

When I’m trying to pick a new bird I always to try to find one from a totally different location to the previous one, if I’ve just given away that I’ve been to a particular country, I don’t want to pick another bird from there too soon. When thinking about what to post next, I was wondering if I had any suitable shots from one of my favourite places, I thought that possibly I didn’t because while I’d taken a lot of photos of birds there, they would all be far too easy, until I saw this photo.

 

I’m not sure if this will help but I’ve just seen in a recent trip report, a much better photo taken somewhere else of a group of these birds.    

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