Sometimes we catch tricky birds in our mist nets that make us think about the bird we just captured!! This is one of them but of course I knew exactly what it was! But I just knew this would be a perfect birdQUIZ shot to make everyone think about its identification!
Note its size (judge by my hand size), its bill shape (color) and overall body feathers in this bird. This is a hard one but work through everything, use your field guide and the answer will come to you.
Welcome everyone to the birdQUIZ blog that will help you with your bird identification skills. Feel free to use any kind of reference you have available for your identification (Sibley’s Field Guide is recommended)!! Good Luck Everyone!
If you need spoilers click on the comments but I strongly suggest that you try to identify the bird first before moving down to see what answers have been given already. The person who commented could be wrong!! Most or all of these birds have been identified in the hand already and we know the answer (unless we say we don't know the answer).
Meet the Contributors:
Please note that we will not be updating this on a daily basis and started it because we thought would be fun to do. Please check out the main blog at "Mon@rch's Nature Blog" and "The Ovenbird"
mon@rch
Naturalist J
martytdx
I’m guessing female indigo bunting.
Female cowbird
I’m going with a female indigo bunting.
…although, the bill looks more like that of a female Blue Grosbeak to me…but I don’t see the buff wing bars….hrmm…
I am guessing female brown-headed cowbird. Do you have a 5 1/2 inch hand or 7 inch?
Great guessing everyone, this is the Brown-headed Cowbird!
Brown headed cowbird based on the bird-in-hand shot.