Coastal Challenge Walkthrough

Okay, maybe the Coastal Challenge was a bit difficult.
Or really difficult.

In fact, there was only one correct answer submitted: Gloria was right about the Black Turnstones in the first picture. Daniel had the right species but the wrong picture; the Common Loon is the center bird in picture #2.

Well, teachable moment time! Here's a walkthrough of how to do all the ID's:

There are 6 main groups of birds you should consider when looking at birds near or on the water:

Loons and grebes:
     Loons have long bodies with short necks and sit low in the water. They tend to be larger than other swimming birds. They dive less frequently than other birds, but stay under for a long time. All have thick, dagger-shaped beaks.
     Grebes have short bodies but long necks and sit low in the water. They tend to be on the small side. They dive almost constantly. In most species, the beak is long and slender.
Waterfowl (ducks, geese, swans, etc):
     Diving ducks tend to be smaller than Mallards, and have relatively short necks. Their beaks are wedge-shaped, except for the long, serrated beaks of mergansers.
Cormorants:
     Cormorants all have long bodies and long necks, with skinny beaks that appear squarish or hooked.
Shorebirds (plover, sandpipers, etc):
     Plover have short necks and short beaks mounted on relatively plump bodies and long legs.
     Large sandpipers tend to have longer necks, longer beaks, and even longer legs than plover. Smaller sandpipers have almost no neck and tiny heads.
     Oddities such as oystercatchers and avocets are instantly recognizable by their odd beak shapes.
Larids (gulls, terns, etc):
     All species have very long wings and are more likely to be flying than swimming. Gulls spend a lot of time gliding, while terns flap almost constantly. Terns also have proportionately longer, pointier wings and beaks. Most tern species are white with a black cap on the head and a colorful beak.
Alcids (puffins, auks, etc):
     These are plump, short-tailed swimming birds that can't fly very well. Like grebes, they dive almost constantly, though they have very short necks. They are only found on the ocean.

     Picture #1: The first thing to notice is that these birds are standing, not swimming, which actually means a lot in a coastal setting. Grebes, loons, auks, and diving ducks are just plain clumsy on land, and avoid it whenever they can. Cormorants will perch sometimes, but the body proportions on these guys are definitely not those of cormorants (necks are too short). These are certainly not gulls (no North American gull has a brown back and head), so we're left with shorebirds. The main feature of these birds are the dark grey-brown backs, chests, and heads, with a rather elaborate pattern on them if you look closely. They're too dark to be plover or "peeps" (genus Calidris). The beaks are too small for these birds to be juvenile American Oystercatchers, so we're pretty much left with sandpipers. The body proportions (awfully chunky and short-necked and short-billed) leave us with four main suspects: Ruddy Turnstone, Black Turnstone, Surfbird, or Rock Sandpiper. Out of these, only the Black Turnstone and Surfbird are dark enough overall, but the Surfbird lacks the all-dark beak. Thus these three castaways are Black Turnstones (Arenaria melanocephala)

Photo by the author.

     Picture #2: We'll start with the bird in the middle.The first thing to notice is that it's swimming with a really low profile, which eliminates shorebirds, larids, geese, and swans. And it's noticeably larger than the other birds in the picture. Except for eiders (which don't normally occur in Oregon), sea ducks tend to be fairly small, so we're left with alcids, loons, grebes, or cormorants. The neck is too short for a cormorant or grebe, and alcids tend to be on the small side. The bird's dagger-shaped bill confirms that it's a loon. Loon species, unfortunately, are difficult to differentiate, and all of the North American species of loon can potentially show up in Oregon. Additionally, this bird is either a juvenile or a bird not yet in breeding plumage. So we go by process of elimination. The Red-throated and Pacific loons are small, with longer, thinner necks and beaks. Yellow-billed Loons have yellow bills (duh) and hold their heads at a rather steep upward angle. Arctic Loons have relatively small heads. Thus this bird is a Common Loon (Gavia immer).

Photo by the author.

     The bird on the far right has a crazy-looking white-and-orange pattern on its face. The beak is shaped like a triangle and is pretty much flat along the bottom, an indicator that this bird is a sea duck. Identifying this one is mostly a matter of browsing the duck section until you stumble across the male Surf Scoter (Melanitta perspicillata) with his just plain weird facial plumage. Here's a closer (and landlubbing) image of one, taken in San Diego, CA:

Photo by the author.

#3: This is the same bird as the one on the left in picture #2. Once again, it's swimming, so we're considering loons, grebes, ducks, geese, cormorants, and alcids. Note that this bird has an incredibly short body and tail plus a HUGE head with a really long, narrow, slightly curved beak. No waterfowl, loon, or cormorant has a beak like that (cormorants and loons also have long bodies). Grebes tend to have long necks, so we're left with alcids.
     Very few people have heard of any alcids other than puffins, and they're not all nicely arranged near the front of the book, so I'll bet that most of you who tried the challenge probably never even checked the alcid section. Well, they're good birds to know, mostly because my favorite species (Aethia cristatella) is one of them. Alcids have short, fat bodies (check), short tails (check), and swim on the open ocean (check). Most have a black on top/white on bottom color scheme, except for the guillemots, auklets, and Tufted Puffins. Just by looking at this bird's long, skinny beak we can eliminate puffins and auklets. Now we just have to differentiate between the two guillemot species (clarification: I'm using the American definition of guillemot; in Britain, it can apply to the genera Cepphus or Uria). The Black Guillemot does not normally occur in Oregon, but don't count it completely out of consideration (identifying birds based on range is baaad). Instead, note the little black triangle at the bottom of the white patch on the wing. It's not as extreme as it is depicted in many illustrations, but it's the field mark nonetheless. This bird is a Pigeon Guillemot (Cepphus columba).

Photo by the author. That's about as close as he ever came.

#4: We're starting with the bird in the center again. Look at that back and neck profile: low in the water, with a Loch Ness monster curve leading up to the head. We can instantly declare this to be either a grebe or cormorant. The beak is oddly square-shaped, and held at an upward angle, neither of which are a characteristic of grebes. This bird is a cormorant.
     Oh, boy.
     I'm not going to lie. Cormorant species are really hard to tell apart, since they're all big black birds that spend their time in the water. Luckily, this bird has ONE HUGE FIELD MARK that allows us to figure out what it is: look at that white spot on its rear. Only two cormorant species have this: Pelagic and Red-faced. Our bird's head is too small and slender for this to be a Red-faced, so it's a Pelagic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax pelagicus).
     The two birds near the bottom right, on the other hand, have their bodies pretty high up in the water and are really rather colorful; this restricts our search to waterfowl. Notice the crazy tufts on their heads, and the thin, coral-colored beak on the nearest one. These field marks indicate that we have found mergansers. With only four possible North American species, this ID is rather simple: the crazy white-and-black patterns on the male plus the rather drab plumage of the female tell us that these are Red-breasted Mergansers (Mergus serrator). Unfortunately, this is the best picture I have of either species.

#5: This one is in some ways the most difficult, but in other ways rather easy. And it's my favorite.
     There's very little to see in this photograph (don't blame me, the bird was a quarter mile away), but it's enough. Low profile, long neck: it's a grebe or cormorant. Huge white patch on face plus super-skinny yellowish beak: not a cormorant. There are 7 North American species of grebe, with varying lengths of necks and beaks. Let's do process of elimination again:
Horned Grebe: our bird's beak is too long.
Eared Grebe: our bird has too much white on the face.
Pied-billed Grebe: our bird's beak is way too long and skinny, and it's plumage has too many different colors for it to be a pied-billed.
Least Grebe: body proportions are all wrong. And it would freeze to death in Oregon.
Clark's Grebe: our bird's neck is too short, and it's completely dark.
Western Grebe: same as Clark's Grebe.
     The huge white triangle on the bird's face, with black on the forehead and a brownish neck, confirms our answer: this is a Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena), which I regard as quite possibly the most beautiful bird in the world. Macaws? Birds of Paradise? Tanagers? Get real. This bird wins with its sheer elegance and the richness of it's limited color palette. Unfortunately, I never got one to come close enough to get a good picture. So search the internet instead.

     As for the bird in the dark in Texas, Daniel was on the right track... sort of. This bird shares a lot in common with chickadees, namely the large head and grey/black/white overall coloration. But there are a couple of things that it doesn't share with chickadees, only a few of which can be noticed in the picture: It only has a black mask on its face, not a full black cap (you can see a bit of light grey over the eyes in the second picture). Chickadees like forests. There aren't many trees on the outskirts of San Antonio. This is a bird of dry, brushy areas.
     What you can't tell from the picture is that this cute, cardinal-sized puffball has a penchant for catching small animals and snapping their necks before impaling them on thorns so they dry up like beef jerky and can be eaten later. A bit of an oddity in the world, this is a predatory songbird. And I'm not talking about bugs; lots of songbirds eat bugs. No, the menu for this species' lunch occasionally includes frogs, lizards, snakes, mice, and even other birds. I present to you: the Loggerhead Shrike! (Lanius ludovicianus)
     The really odd thing, though, is that even though it seemed like there was one of these on every telephone wire in the area (there was one day I counted more of them than any other species besides Rock Dove and House Sparrow) I never actually got a good picture of one. Oh, well. Someday.

But remember, you still got points for trying! And keep an eye out for What Is It? Round 8, which will be easier.