Answers & solutions
Check your answers against our explanations. Remember, as ever, there are no ‘trick’ birds or extreme rarities among these cliff-nesters
BIRD 1
Unusually for ID Challenge, we have a bit of an extreme close-up for the first mystery bird (here reproduced slightly zoomed out). In the ‘original’ cropping, we see a uniformly dark brown head, with a brown eye and the black gape of the bill. The stand-out feature is a fine white eye-ring and white stripe extending back over the top of the ear coverts. Such a uniformly dark-headed bird must be an auk. Razorbills are black, not brown and have a white line from the eye to the top of the bill, and Black Guillemots are also black and would not show this curious white eyering and ear covert stripe. This is a Guillemot of the ‘bridled’ morph. The proportion of bridled Guillemots in a colony varies from 0% in the south of the range to more than 50% in Svalbard.
Key features
Uniformly brown head
Obvious white eye-ring and stripe behind eye Dark brown eye
Black base to bill
BIRD 2
Here we have the rear view of a bird seemingly plunging off a cliff straight toward the sea far below. The wings are spread, the white tail is fanned and raised (revealing the white undertail coverts) and the pinkish webbed feet are held open, seeming like brakes or parachutes! The wings are long and all we can see of them shows they are pale grey. So, perhaps this is a gull. But it can’t be a Kittiwake, as they have black legs and feet, not pinkish. Herring Gulls have pink feet, but there is a lack of uniformity about the colour of the wings, and Herring Gulls have black-and-white wing tips and a notable white trailing edge to the wings, while the trailing edges here are grey. Also, the wings are too stiff and straight for a gull; this is a Fulmar.
Key features
Long, stiff wings
White splayed tail
Grey trailing edge to wings
Pinkish webbed feet
BIRD 3
Here are two birds which look similar to each other and are clearly of the same species. Plumage-wise, they appear to be black all over, without a trace of any other colour in the feathers. That said, the bills are clearly not black! They are red and notably down-curved. Structure-wise, these birds have very broad wings, with prominent primary ‘fingers’ and a mediumlong tail, which, when fanned, is gently curved. The all black plumage brings to mind either Blackbird or the black crows. But Blackbirds do not have wings like this, nor such a long, red bill. There is only one bird which fits this description, the Chough, a bird of grassy clifftops of west Wales, Hebridean islands and with a few pairs now back in Cornwall. Choughs are true masters of the air; champion fliers.
Key features
All black plumage
Red, down-curved bill
Very broad, fingered, wings
Longish, ‘straight’ tail
BIRD 4
This is not the sort of bird which comes to mind when thinking of birds which nest on rocky cliffs and related habitats. It is obviously a small passerine (perching bird or song bird), with a longish, thin bill stuffed with what looks like insects. The streaked plumage, particularly the underparts (combined with that bill) point towards this being a pipit. But which species? There are two pipit species which could be associated with nesting around such habitats: Meadow Pipit and Rock Pipit. The following features narrow down the ID: the back is quite plain dull grey-brown with only a hint of streaking (Meadow Pipits have clearly striped backs); the flank and breast streaks are ‘smudgy’, rather than neat fine black lines or spots; the longish black bill and blackish legs confirm this is a Rock Pipit.
Key features
Small bird with typical pipit look Plain back
Smudgy streaks on underparts Dark legs and feet
BIRD 5
Now, we are back with more conventional rocky cliff fare, with a dark water bird regurgitating what promises to be a fishy feast over the head of one of its fluffy chicks. The placement of the adult’s feet near the tail end of the bird is classic for a swimmer, and those huge webbed feet take away any doubt. It is an all-dark bird, with blackish green feathering on the back, with each feather with a black ‘fringe’, giving an almost scaly look. The head is dark, with some bright yellow skin around the gape and onto the throat. The eye is green. The bill (or at least the upper mandible) is long and slim with a hooked tip. These birds could only be Shags, lacking the white on the face and flank of the larger Cormorant.
Key features
All dark plumage, green eye
Yellow gape and hint of yellow throat
Upperparts look scaly and glossy
No white in plumage
BIRD 6
Finally, we have a bird which is surely not too much of a challenge for any birdwatcher... It has the black-and-white (or very dark brown-and-white) plumage typical of an auk, which immediately narrows it down to just a few species, in a British context. The fact that the head and throat are dark, but the breast and belly are white, rules out the ‘all dark’ Black Guillemot, as well as the grey-faced, coloured-billed Puffin. So, we are left with one of two fairly similar auks, both of which have strikingly yellow insides to the bill, like this bird: Guillemot and Razorbill. The thick (laterally compressed) bill, with a subterminal white, vertical stripe and the white line in front of the eye all give away that this is, of course, a Razorbill.
Key features
Black-and-white auk
Laterally compressed bill
White line from eye to top of bill
White stripe on bill