NOVEMBER 2008'S MYSTERY BIRD ANSWERS

The penultimate round of the 2008 Manchester Birding Mystery Bird Competition received 25 entries in what was admittedly another challenging round but once again, all the features required to make a correct identification were there but they needed digging out, careful consideration and then the courage to send them in. Many thanks to you all that did just that once again!

Mystery Bird 21

Was I testing to see who was awake? Who took the time and trouble to read the articles on the website? Or was it just what I had to hand at the time of choosing the pictures? Five species were offered as answers, all similar in being species with relatively long wings and a forked tail, those being Sabine's Gull, Black Tern, White-winged Black Tern, Sand Martin and House Martin but looking closely at what we can see on this mystery bird I think we can come to our conclusion quite quickly so let's whiz through them. Sabine's Gull shows an obvious large white 'triangle' on the trailing edge of the mid-wing, something which would be patently obvious on this image if it were one, but sadly it is not. Sand Martin can be eliminated due to our mystery bird's obvious contrast between the paler remiges and darker upperwing coverts and back (the opposite should be true for Sand Martin) and that our bird looks particularly grey, House Martin too (receiving 5 votes) can be quickly crossed off the list, being far darker, almost blackish than our bird with a blatantly white rump. That leaves the two marsh terns and those that either knew the correct answer or those than utilised their separation article on the website, many of whom admitted to, for in it lies the answer and despite only 3 entries for White-winged Black Tern our mystery marsh tern's clear lack of contrast between the mantle and inner wing; and rump, which when compared to the obvious white of the flanks, is clearly grey, quickly and fairly efficiently bring us to our Black Tern conclusion.  Twelve entrants correctly identified this bird as a Black Tern (juvenile).

Juvenile Black Tern, Elton Reservoir (Adrian Dancy)

Mystery Bird 22

This mystery bird clearly caused confusion amongst the ranks with 6 species offered as entries but even so, 17 of you managed to bag the correct one but which one was it? The species offered were rather varied to say the least and working through them they were (deep breath) Nightingale (the mystery bird completely lacks this species' uniformity, showing clear pale edges to the wing feathers and visible on the original larger image, fine barring to the upperparts), Stonechat (our mystery bird is too bright on the mantle and the tail of Stonechat would appear very dark, blackish), Spotted Flycatcher (again our bird is too bright on the upperparts  and the tail is not nearly dark enough), Pied Flycatcher (female, with 2 entries but it's tail is very dark blackish, it lacks our bird's bright upperparts and more bold and conspicuous white tertial edges would be apparent) and Garden Warbler (our bird it too bright, too rufous with too conspicuous pale wing feather edges). The only remaining answer received was, wait for it.....Red-backed Shrike and indeed that is what the mystery bird is. That no one offered any other shrike species is somewhat of a relief, not that they couldn't be eliminated from the originally supplied photograph (because they could!) but because the separation of the similar species (Red-backed, Isabelline and Brown Shrike) can get complicated, is often fraught with difficulty and would have taken an age and a thousand words to deal with in this write up! The fact is, that the combination of features that were available (including the finely barred upperparts which were visible in the original, larger photograph) were enough to be entirely confident of our Red-backed Shrike outcome.

First winter Red-backed Shrike, Spurn, Yorkshire, September 2008 (Ian McKerchar)

Out of our original 25 entries this month, only 10 managed to get both answers right and they were Iain 'still entering all the way over in New Zealand' Johnson, Peter 'shooting from the hip' Rolph, Tim 'gamely bringing up the rear of the field' Wilcox, Mike 'more in hope than expectation' Chorley, Mark 'nearly cocked up again' Rigby, Rob and Sonia Adderley, Paul 'I'll slash yer tyres' Cliff', Simon Warford, John 'here we go again' Rayner, Tony Coatsworth and Simon Johnson.

That of course means that Simon Johnson now has a unassailable lead into the final round (providing he enters next month, otherwise I'll dock him points!) and justifiably so having lead practically from the off but remembering the mystery bird comp ethos, that it's just for fun, I still expect you all to carry on to the end regardless ☺