JANUARY 2009'S MYSTERY BIRD ANSWERS

A new year and a new, much more difficult regime? No, not really, this month's rather cryptic mystery birds were merely an attempt to get the grey matter working and intended to produce some 'out of the box' thinking, afterall a little variety never hurt anyone, right? Anyway, just how did the 35 entrants who had a go at this month's pair get on, let's see...

Mystery Bird 1

Hmmm, it's a wader and we were all very nearly agreed on that fact atleast but Lapwing, Greenshank, Lesser Yellowlegs, Leach's Storm Petrel, Green Sandpiper and Black-tailed Godwit were offered as identifications. Greenshank (1 vote) can be discounted relatively straightforwardly as the white on it's rump extending far up it's back reaching the base of the mantle in an almost inverted V shape and this alone certainly doesn't fit our mystery bird and similarly, Black-tailed Godwit (with 2 votes) would display quite prominently it's white upperwing-bars and so doesn't fit our bird either. Lapwing received 4 votes and isn't perhaps such a bad shot, the left wing does indeed look quite rounded on the primaries but there is no white to their outer tips, something a Lapwing would display, Leach's Storm Petrel (1 vote) lacks the long necked jizz of our bird and is subtly differently proportioned (but a very good attempt!) and Lesser Yellowlegs (1 vote) is rather more similar to our mystery bird again but would undoubtedly not appear so solidly dark. This mystery bird was yet another of those birds in which field experience often quickly and efficiently leads you to your conclusion, it 'just looks like one', it's very solidly dark upperparts with that prominent pure white, square looking rump, medium long legs, longish slim neck and small head all giving rise to a characteristic jizz which lead 26 entrants to correctly identify it as a Green Sandpiper.

Green Sandpiper, River Irwell (Adrian Dancy)

Mystery Bird 2

Oh dear, what have I done? The first real cryptic mystery bird of the competition actually involved four of them, was obviously a reflection of them in water and was met with stunned confusion by and large! It's purpose was simply to get you thinking and to attempt to look at these things from a slightly different perspective, the identification features were still all there, admirably confirmed by the 8 entrants who managed the correct answer and it was pleasing to atleast see that some observers had been busy rotating, flipping and generally fiddling with the image to see if anything else could be gleaned from it. A bewildering 12 species were offered from confused entrants, clearly the largest selection of any round to date, reinforcing it's difficulty and they were Tufted Duck (3 entries), Pochard (11 entries), Wigeon (2 entries), Eurasian Teal (8 entries), Pintail (2 entries), Mallard (1 entry), Gadwall (1 entry), Scaup (1 entry) Great Crested Grebe (1 entry), Goosander (1 entry), Barnacle Goose (1 entry), Oystercatcher (1 entry) and Goldeneye (1 entry). What a wide and diverse selection they are too, so with a break from the norm I'll get straight to the correct answer and that is that they are indeed Eurasian Teal, I could and perhaps should go through each and every species as usual but frankly, I'm late getting this write up published anyway due to having just come off working nights and having been too tired to complete it in between them and want to get this finished so I can get a few hours sleep before starting my more pleasurable evening shift gull watching at my favourite county gull roost ☺ Look at the image again with the knowledge of the correct answer and see if the features necessary to identify them are any more prominent now, the black vent, little yellowish/white patch on the side of the vent, chestnut head (which encouraged many to the Pochard outcome) and rather greyish underparts, also that it stated that all four birds were the same species but one of them was obviously much browner and devoid of the aforementioned features led atleast some to deduce that it was a female. There was no shame what so ever in getting the wrong answer, as there is with any of the rounds but take heart that even the photographer of the original image, who is a regular entrant in the competition, didn't get it right either although his identity is withheld for his own shame!

Eurasian Teal, Pennington Flash (Photographer withheld) it was John Tymon.....☺, but no one ever reads this bit anyway!

So there we have it, everything's clearer now right? Well anyway, not surprisingly only eight entrants managed to get both species right, Andy Isherwood, Neil Calbrade, Paul Brown, Nick Godden, Caroline Clay, Nick Green, John Frankland and Simon Johnson and they make a very good start to the year indeed but it's early days yet and it 's all to play for.

Thanks to you all for a great opening round to this year's competition, the next round is back to more familiar territory, I think...