APRIL'S MYSTERY BIRD ANSWERS

There were only 18 entrants this month, possibly due to the change in competition dates, boredom, forgetfulness (that'd me my excuse!) or just that the mystery birds this month were admittedly more difficult. The increased difficulty was with good reason though, as after loosing all my competition photos in March I had to obtain some new ones and those two weeks I had to manage this were taken up with a holiday in Cyprus! That might give you a better idea already as to whether your answers are correct or not, but it's too late to change them now ☺

Mystery bird 13

9 out of the 18 entrants correctly identified this bird, proving that despite a nice big, clear image thing are not always as easy as it would seem, this bird even had a visible head! Six species were put forward and other than a vote each for House Sparrow, Lapland Bunting and Twite the rest managed to identify it as some sort of Lark, the latter 3 species can be eliminated with House Sparrow having a uniform coloured crown and very boldly streaked back, Lapland Bunting much stronger and brighter facial features, again a much more obviously and strongly streaked back and some reddish-brown in the greater coverts and Twite lacking this birds obvious pale supercilium, too having a more boldly streaked back and should show some pinkish on the rump. So, a Lark it is and 3 species received the remaining 15 votes, Woodlark, Skylark and Short-toed Lark. On this view of the bird, Woodlark should show the prominent supercilia joining at the rear of the nape, forming the characteristic slight V shape, also the tertials are subtly but very differently patterned than this bird's, so a Woodlark it is not. Skylark gets close and requires more careful separation, especially for a worn spring bird with it's crest flattened but there is one feature clearly visible in the photograph that immediately identifies this bird from all other larks we might encounter and curtails the need to go any further into a feather by feather analysis, the tertials! They are huge, clearly cloaking the primaries they are that long, a feature which is only shown by Short-toed Lark. The photo below shows the other salient features of the bird, including the obvious black centres to the median coverts, the slightly brighter capped appearance and the dark patch on the breast side just visible.

Short-toed Lark, Korucam Burnu, Northern Cyprus- Ian McKerchar

Mystery bird 14

Another difficult bird, entrants were clearly divided into two main camps in the answer for it's identification, other than single entries for Redpoll and Tree Pipit. So a small (ish) looking passerine, forked tail, a couple of rather prominent whitish wing bars, strongly streaked sides to the breast, whitish underparts, browny (?) head with a quite obvious yellow patch on the central breast and is that a hint around the ear coverts? Both Redpoll and Tree Pipit lack any bold yellow patch on the breast, Tree Pipit has differently patterned breast and flank streaks and Redpoll wouldn't be as clearly white on the underparts as this bird too, so that left two others, female Siskin and Serin, both with 8 votes a piece. So, which is it? Well, put simply (and why not?), Siskin isn't quite so boldly streaked as this bird, doesn't have the yellow patch on the breast and it's wing bars are yellow, so there you are...it's a Serin!

Serin (female), Korucam Burnu, Northern Cyprus- Ian McKerchar

The following entrants did very well in getting both mystery birds correct, Tony Coatsworth, Nick Patel, Dave Broome, Craig Higson, Kane Brides, Rob and Sonia Adderley and Andy Isherwood with the rest slipping up on one or the other of them, but doing well to get just one never the less! Dave Broome continues his unbroken run of correct answers with 14, but there are still 5 more rounds to come and one never knows what's around the corner.