MARCH'S MYSTERY BIRDS ANSWERS

Firstly my apologies for the delay in publishing March's answers, due to holidaying in Cyprus and more seriously the hard disc collapse on my computer which led to the loss of all my photographs and data not backed up (which was a lot!). Fortunately I managed to get all my saved emails back which enabled me to find out just who had sent in their entries and who'd got them all right, but please note that there will be no photos of the real birds identities this month due to the aforementioned loss of the photos. Please learn from my mistake and if you don't already regularly back up every thing on your computer (either to an external hard drive or to CD/DVD), then make sure you do, because loosing everything is easier than you might think.

Anyway, there were 21 entrants this month, 15 of which got both mystery birds correct but my comment on last month's answers page "but there's still time for one or both (of the current leaders) to make a mistake or two", came to bear with one of the them coming a cropper and only managing one correct answer.

Mystery bird 11

Everyone managed to identify the headless bird as a species of duck with 5 species submitted, Teal, Gadwall, Pintail, Shoveler and Blue-winged Teal. The mystery bird clearly displays rather intricately marked upperparts consisting of dark brown feathers with paler brown edges and internal markings and whilst this can be displayed to some extent or other by all the submitted species, there is infact only one whose upperparts are quite so clearly intricate in patternation. Turning our attention to the tail, it is clearly very long (projecting well past the primaries) and very pointed indicating one species and one species alone, Pintail, a conclusion which sixteen entrants managed to achieve.

Mystery bird 12

A bathing bird, this clearly gave some entrants real trouble, not knowing which way the bird was facing, never mind it's identity but never the less, 19 still came to the correct conclusion. Mystery bird photos of this nature are best judged on an overall 'feel' rather than the usual feather dissection as it's difficult to pick out which part of the bird is which but using this method, standing back and assessing the complete photo it seems that the bird is facing away whilst bathing and flapping it's wings. If this is true the white and black just above the water, below the flapping wings, could be the tail and the rounded section above the flapping wings the head, which appears to show a darker cap and what may be a paler supercilium, but this perhaps helps little as this doesn't necessarily narrow down the family of bird it belongs to, let alone species! If we are correct though and that is the head, isn't that what appears to be a significant double crest on the left hand side (which would of course be the rear of the head)? Put the pieces together, black terminally and white basally on the tail, a broad pale supercilium (atleast on the rear on the face) with a dark cap and obvious crest consisting of a couple of long, slim feathers and we reach our conclusion, that the bird is infact a Lapwing. That Ruddy Duck and Great Crested Grebe were also offered as answers displays the difficulty involved with the photo but once you know the true identity it all becomes clear (I think)!

The following entrants managed to identify both species correctly, Kane Brides, Les Steele, Helen Garwood, Craig Higson, Ian Bowker, John Frankland, Steve Nelson, Nick Patel, Steven Astley, Joan Disley, Dave Evans, Dave Broome, Rob and Sonia Adderley, Nick Hilton and Geoff Hargreaves. One of the previous leaders did indeed slip up this month which led to a single clear leader at this stage, Dave Broome with a full house of 12 correct answers whilst several other competitors are still in with a chance and hot on his heels, it's never over until it's over!

The mystery birds for the next round (April) can be found here.