Quiz kindly prepared by Ava. Photo taken October 16, Ventura County, CA.
Here we have a small songbird whose color pattern makes this look like
a deceptively easy identification. Although we don’t get a great look
at the face markings, we do get a good look at the overall colors, the
undertail, and the tail. Sometimes, that’s all you need.
Please enter your name below, and what you think the bird is,
and (even more importantly) why you think that’s what it is.
Answer will be displayed on November 1.
Answer:
The distinctive black-and-white coloration of this bird immediately
brings us down to only a handful of species. From here we can
eliminate further. The small size, streaking on the sides, and the
short tail rule out Black Phoebe and White Wagtail (rare but
possible). This bird might be a Mountain Chickadee; however, the
streaking on the sides and the white in the tail rules this out. We
are left with warblers.
There are three warbler species that at times have mostly
black-and-white plumage: Blackpoll Warbler, Black-and-White Warbler,
and Black-throated Gray Warbler. Let’s start with Blackpoll. This
bird does look very much like a breeding male, but this bird has too
much white in the tail; from this angle the tail looks almost
all-white. Blackpoll has much smaller white spots in the tail.
However, the real catch here is that the black-and-white plumage is
only worn by the breeding male. By October all the birds will be in
their dull greenish fall plumage, so this bird can’t be a Blackpoll.
Perhaps it’s a Black-and-White Warbler, then. However, one look at
the undertail coverts and we can see that they are a clean white, not
heavily marked with black as they would be for Black-and-White
Warbler, a feature this bird frequently shows off during its
nuthatch-like foraging. This leaves us with only one option, the
black-and-white-patterned warbler with extensive white in the tail and
a clean white undertail. By process of elimination, we have arrived
at this bird’s identity: Black-throated Gray Warbler.
Here is another photo of the same bird:
Congratulations to Adrian, Jake, Lily, and Thomas for figuring out
Black-throated Gray warbler!
