Thursday, November 1, 2012

What Is It? (Round 6)

We had great turnout for last week's ID challenge!
Last week's birds were Gambel's Quail (Callipepla gambelii) and Sora Rail (Porzana caronlina)

David mentioned that the Sora's body looked a bit strange... and he's right! For one thing, they have huge feet that spread their weight out over soft mud so they don't sink in. If that's not weird enough, they have muscles that let them flatten their own ribcages so they are less than an inch and a half wide. This lets them dart quickly through dense reeds (trust me, they are really fast).

So now it's time for Round 6!

These two are fairly easy. I figured I'd give you a week to relax before... THE COASTAL CHALLENGE!
Yeah, next week will be a big one. So start studying your seabirds.

Okay, back to Round 6.
Since you guys have been so great at identifying things quickly, I've decided to do at least two species per week.

     Our first species here was out in a scrubby area near Lake Hodges in Escondido, California. Is he gorgeous, or what! (too bad the picture isn't all that great)
Photo by the author.
     Since I was discussing owls and looking at birds in the dark, I figured I'd let you guys try some of that too (the dark part, not the owl part). You can't see much detail on this guy from San Antonio, Texas, but you can still identify him! Both pictures were taken at around 9:00pm outside the hotel I was staying in.

Photo by the author.
Photo by the author.
     As usual, use the "view image" option to see these full size. Comments with answers are due by Thursday, November 8th. THE COASTAL CHALLENGE will open on November 9th (which just so happens to be my birthday).

Happy IDing!
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5 comments:

  1. GloriaNovember 1, 2012 at 9:58 AM

    REALLY wild guess for the second one -- Verdin? I literally just flipped to the page in my bird book, and the shape/viewable colors seemed similar. May come back later to change this answer/give my best guess at the first one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownNovember 1, 2012 at 10:00 AM

    This might be wrong, but is the second one a Black-Capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)? No idea on the first one yet, I need to find a better bird book.

    ReplyDelete
  3. David GongNovember 1, 2012 at 10:08 AM

    Wow, this week was pretty hard (especially the night-time pictures)! For the first bird, I am going to guess that it is a Lazuli Bunting because I couldn't find another bird with such similar coloring.

    I am not really sure about the second bird. As I searched online for birds in San Antonio, Texas, I found a sit with tones of pretty pictures of birds. There were many yellow ones which could have fit these pictures but it was hard to decide which one fit the most. I am going to go with a Great Kiskadee because the other birds (Blackburned Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, and other yellow perching birds) did't seem to have the long tail that the Great Kiskadee and the bird in your two pictures share.

    I don't think I'm right on these identifications but oh well, at least I tried.

    ReplyDelete
  4. GloriaNovember 1, 2012 at 10:14 AM

    WOW I totally found Lazuli Bunting first. It's okay. Anyways that was to be my guess for the first one.

    I was also looking at the Western Scrub Jay, since you said the area was "scrubby," and the Scrub Jay is mainly in California. However, the picture looks more like the Bunting, though it also looks like a jay. Ahh! I don't even know.

    Also happy early birthday, Arch! :3

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownNovember 5, 2012 at 10:24 AM

    I was confused because I thought the first one was a black bird and the light had just caught a lot of iridescence, but I think the first one is a Blue Grosbeak. And I shall get back to you concerning the second bird :)

    --Julia

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