It has been a long time since I’ve put up a diabolical identification quiz. Too long, in fact. In order to get back into the swing of things I thought I would start small, with just one image. Do you know what the bird in the image below is? If so, share your answer in the comments! If you get it right you be lauded by all of birder-kind and are guaranteed to succeed on your next twitch. If you get it wrong we will point and laugh. If you have taken the time to read this and you don’t guess you will trip over your own feet and fall down and smash your binoculars. So you better put your best guess in the comments!
I think that there is more than enough of the bird in this photo to make an educated guess. Good luck! DIABOLICAL!!!
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
Gray Catbird.
Swainson’s Thrush?
Nope!
Nope!
If there is not a correct answer by this time tomorrow I’ll leave a clue…
This is a highly uneducated guess; a shot in the dark, if you will, but I’m worried about the 7 years of bad luck if I don’t guess. Here goes: Yellow-breasted Chat!
Ha – on the spot and off the cuff I’d say Northern Mockingbird. Are we even in a North America? I’m a good sport, I’ll humiliate myself with backup guesses.
Dark-eyed Junco?
Scratch that. I was just seeing the tail. Now I see the head, too.
Northern Mockingbird?
I was going to go with Gray Catbird as well. And I was going to do it with a meaningful amount of confidence too….
Nope!
Nope!
Nope!
Nope!
I’m torn between Antipodean Albatross or Shoebill. So I’ll go wid…. Lesser Melampitta.
Red-breasted Nuthatch
The two thin, light-colored, vertically-oriented objects, out of focus in the foreground, are the legs of a Cattle Egret.
Which bird? The catbird-ish head on the left or the Swamp Sparrow tail on the right?
DEFINITELY NOPE!
Oh I wish I had two birds in this shot. That would have been awesome. But nope and nope.
Nope, but that would have been awesome.
Nope!
The closest guess so far is in the Facebook comments…
Yeah, this is a tough one. The bill is killing people but the color of it might be an artifact of the lighting conditions…
Brown Thrasher
Prothonotary Warbler
female Brown-headed Cowbird?
Bill and tail are quite reminiscent of Prothonotary, but the crown seems off for that species. Still, just for the fun of it, Prothonotary is it.
Gahhh, so hard! Northern Waterthrush?
Woodthrush
Toxostoma species
WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nope!
Nope.
Nope.
Nope
In my defence the Northern Waterthrush and Lesser Melampitta were only split last year.