MAY 2008'S MYSTERY BIRD ANSWERS

County birding in May this year was some of the best I've ever known and if that was the reason for the slight decline in entrants then I fully understand, afterall you should be out there looking rather than staring at the mystery birds on your monitor! Anyway, there were 27 entrants this month and many thanks to them all but these mystery birds were some of the most difficult yet and were a real test, so how did you fair?

                                                                                     Mystery bird 9

Oddly enough there were four species suggested for this mystery bird, three waders and one finch! Some were obviously swayed by the habitat the bird was in, a wet single beach and the bird appears to be  largely white and blackish so our first incorrect answer of Snow Bunting (3 entrants) could be forgiven were it not for the white wingbar clearly extending onto the primaries (not on Snow Bunting) and what is undoubtedly a reasonably long bill visible just beyond the open wings on the left! So we can be sure it's not a Snow Bunting and that only leaves us with three waders, Dunlin, Sanderling and Little Stint. Dunlin (3 votes) should really have a longer, rather less straight bill in any of the races that reach our shores and bearing in mind from the plumage we can see it would have to be either an adult in breeding plumage or a juvenile then it should also show some black on the belly or flanks, which our bird clearly does not so a Dunlin I'm afraid it isn't. On the face of it the two remaining (Sanderling and Little Stint) can appear very similar, especially as in this instance where no size comparison is possible and many of either bird's more distinctive features are hidden by the open wings but on this image the wingbar would seem to fit either or perhaps even favour Sanderling slightly such is it's apparent broadness, the black legs fit both and so might the overall plumage tones, clearly this is not going to be easy! A few entrants who managed to correctly identify the bird commented on it's overall 'feel', never easy to explain but it does appear perhaps too well proportioned and not really 'stocky' enough for a Sanderling, the bill is rather slender tipped, there does appear to be a very slim (on this angle atleast) visible white line on the mantle just before where the open wing crosses the line of the back and the tertials on the far wing are clearly rufous edged all features that support our correct identification of Little Stint. Admittedly it was a difficult one and features could be easily misconstrued but this is where close study and double-checking comes in and as for the apparently broad wing bar? Simply blur of the photograph! Fourteen entrants correctly identified the mystery bird, you know who you are but sometimes it's best to make your mind up early and stick with it as one entrant changed his mind from the wrong answer to the right answer and then just before the closing date, back to the wrong answer again ☺!

                                                          Little Stint (juvenile), North Norfolk (Adrian Dancy)

                                                                                    Mystery bird 10

Oh dear, what have I done? Probably the most difficult species pair to identify in the UK, particularly from photographs caused utter chaos amongst the entrants but the photograph was never meant to be misleading, put your self in the place of a rarities committee member receiving this photograph as a submission (not as fictitious as it sounds) and read on. Whittling it down to two species was never going to present problems and unsurprisingly only those two were offered, Marsh or Willow Tit and as we can only go off the features present in the photograph getting it correct was either going to rely on a subjective assessment or a 50/50 gamble! Comments for either species went like this, you can decide which species they were for yourself: matt cap, not bull necked, wing panel, big bib, small bib (!), one of your regular haunts is Pennington (so I could have taken the photo there), flanks look buffish, quite grey (and possibly of the race borealis), cheeks look dirty. Basically this is undoubtedly the most difficult mystery bird to date and I can assure you they won't get any worse that this (but I may retract that at a future date ☺) so lets start our analysis at the most evident feature, that wing panel. Willow Tits do of course usually have an obvious pale wing panel on the secondaries formed by pale edges to the feathers and as we all know Marsh usually do not although they can have a suggestion when newly moulted in autumn but are this bird's secondaries really edged pale or is it a trick of the light, more common than you might give credit for? The edges to the secondaries, whilst pale edged here match exactly the pale edges on the primaries (considering that the wing feathers we can see here are roughly half and half, secondaries over primaries) an considering that neither species should have pale edged primaries those edges are infact merely a lighting effect but it isn't necessarily confirmatory either way. The black bib was termed both large and small but to my eyes it is certainly quite small but either way there is much overlap in this feature and it too is not diagnostic in this instance, the glossy cap is never going to show well in a photograph and is difficult enough to perceive in live birds so it's absence again doesn't necessarily discount Marsh Tit. To my eyes, one feature of this bird which may sway my opinion is it's overall colour tone, a potentially dangerous path to take from a photograph but given that the branch the bird is perched on is rather life like in tone I think it's fair to say that the colours aren't too far out at least. That one observer commented that it might be a borealis race Willow Tit (not occurring in the UK so I couldn't use one if I had one), a sub-species which is colder in tone and lacking the brighter buffy flanks of our own race of Willow Tit supports my feeling that this bird does indeed have a more 'plain' brown mantle and duller, plainer coloured flanks and whilst both species in the UK are very similar I still feel Marsh more often fit this description. The bird does indeed seem to lack the more bull-necked feel of Willow Tit (caused by stronger neck muscles used to 'dig-out' their own nest holes) and all these features together could well lend themselves to a decision of this bird being a Marsh Tit for that is it's correct identification, but as always, although it is more forgivable than ever here, there is no shame in getting this one wrong! Another image of the same bird appears below along with 2 Willow Tits for comparison but the fact that only 4 entrants managed to correctly guess, I mean identify, this mystery bird emphasizes it's difficultly, so a special well done to Nick Green, Dave Broome, Henry Cook and Simon Johnson.

                                                          Marsh Tit, Leighton Moss (Adrian Dancy)

                                                                          Willow Tits, left by Paul Hammond and right by Ian McKerchar

This round certainly narrowed the leaders down somewhat further and only 3 entrants managed both mystery bird's correct identities, Nick Green, Henry Cook and Simon Johnson which leaves only Simon Johnson with a full set of correct answers at this point in the competition although there's still hope of a fall for those hot on his heels with over half the year remaining.