Florida in January
Can you identify the birds in this picture? Fill out the form below and submit it to compete in this month's photo quiz. The first correct entry will receive a CMBO LensPen- "The superior lens cleaning system for fine optics". All correct entires will be entered in the Grand Prize competition (click to see full description and rules). We will post the names of the winning entries next month.
Please note: All quiz birds are species that occur in New Jersey. All fields are required for entry.
April 2008 Photo Quiz Answer
Branches are obscuring much of this bird, but the parts we can see look heavily spotted and barred with gray-brown and off-white. That description could apply to a great many species so we’ll need to look more closely. One point that could be very helpful is the fact that well up and left from the body, we can just see the eye and part of the head peering over a branch. This bird has a long neck. Now were getting somewhere. We’ve just ruled out all of those “little brown job” passerines, not to mention hawks and owls. A look at the wing tips reveals blackish primaries projecting well beyond the tertials and tail tip. None of the herons show such a long primary projection and no ducks, rails, or chicken-like birds show primaries well past the tail tip. Immature gulls are worth considering but none show such short primary projections nor do any match the pattern of barring on the tail and tertials of this bird. All that is left are shorebirds.
A shorebird in the woods? By process of elimination it has to be. American Woodcocks, of course, are right at home in the woods but they don’t show such long primaries, nor are they found in Costa Rica (where this photo was taken). The list of possible shorebirds, those with barred tertials and tail, include American and Pacific Golden-Plovers, Black-bellied Plover, Willet, Long-billed Curlew, Whimbrel, Upland Sandpiper, and Marbled Godwit. Two of these are easy to eliminate: Black-bellied Plover has a white, not gray-brown, ground-color to the tail, and Upland Sandpiper has a long tail that projects well past the primaries. The two golden-plovers never show such strong barring across the tail; at best, they show bold pale notches along the edge of the tail (juveniles and breeding adults) or very blurry bars across the tail (non-breeding adults). Also, even with the neck fully stretched out, a golden-plover would never show such a long neck. The primary projection is a bit long for Willet and the pattern on the upperparts is wrong: non-breeding Willets (the plumage one would expect in January) show plain gray upperparts while breeding Willets show much more contrasting blackish bars above. Among the three remaining choices, Whimbrel is the one with the best color match: gray-brown rather than the warm buffy-brown of Long-billed Curlew and Marbled Godwit. The latter two species also show shorter primaries as well as more contrasting dark bars above. That tiny bit we can see of the head helps to confirm the identification: Whimbrel’s telltale crown stripes are evident.
It’s always enlightening to see how “our” birds behave in other parts of their range. When we see Whimbrels here in New Jersey, they’re almost always in a salt marsh, mud flat, or beach. But on their arctic breeding grounds they often perch on the tallest structures around, such as dead trees or telephone poles; on their Pacific Coast wintering grounds they occupy rocky coastlines; and on their tropical wintering grounds, it is perfectly normal to see one walking among a thick tangle of mangroves, as this bird was doing.
Monthly Prize Winner*
Brendan Fogarty of Garden City, NY
Honorable Mention*
Robert C. Duke of Woodbury Heights, NJ
Scott Angus of Bangor, ME
John Bissell of Grimes, Iowa
Blake Mathys of Milltown, NJ
Dave Roell of Egg Harbor Township, NJ
*All Honorable Mentions and the Monthly Prize Winner will be automatically entered in to the Grand Prize drawing.