ID Challenge
This month’s challenge features autumn scarcities/rarities. How many can you name?
Hints and tips on spotting seasonal rarities, with a focus on Dunlin
Autumn is the season of scarce and rare visitors to the UK. By their very definition, they are generally unfamiliar birds to British birders, so present a peculiar identification challenge. Rare/scarce birds can come from just about any order of birds, and you just have to be prepared and expect the unexpected (as well as anticipating and predicting ‘likely’ candidates). There is, as with many things in the world of birding, no substitute for field experience. But, that said, a bit of book learning or internet research can do no harm! As usual, the challenge is simple (in principle, if not practice): please put a name to the six birds featured in the photographs on this page. Then, when you are happy with your answers, turn the page to see our solutions and reasoning. Then, if you are hungry for more, turn the page again for some ID tips and advice.
BIRD 2
It should be apparent that this dumpy bird is a wader of some kind; and the rounded structure combined with the short straight bill and large dark eye should have you thinking this is a plover. You can go further and say this is one of the Pluvialis plovers: the golden plovers or Grey Plover. The black spots on the breast and belly mean it is a moulting adult (not a neat juvenile). The grey ‘wash’ to the plumage and largely black-andwhite plumage rule out Golden Plover, while the thin bill rules out the chunkier Grey Plover, leaving Pacific and American Golden Plovers. Possibly the best distinguishing feature is the (visible) primary flight feathers, projecting beyond the tertials. This is a moulting American Golden Plover, transitioning from summer to winter plumage.
Key features
n Typical larger plover shape
n Thin bill rules out Grey Plover
n Relatively dark back and underparts rules out Golden Plover
n Primaries projecting beyond tertials rules out Pacific GP
BIRD 1
Here, we have a long-billed, long-legged, long-winged, brown, flying bird. The folded or tucked-in (long) neck immediately tells you this is a heron. The bulge of the folded neck is enough to rule out the most familiar brown heron species, the Bittern. The long, dagger-like bill and rather elongate structure suggest this is one of the larger herons, and the (white) egrets can be ruled out on colour alone. Indeed, this bird is too large and slim to be, say, a Green Heron or a juvenile Night Heron. It is more like a Grey Heron in structure, but, they are blue-grey all over, not extensively orange-brown. This is a juvenile Purple Heron, a conclusion enforced by the outsized yellow feet (and yellow legs) the orange-brown wing coverts and orange-brown face.
Key features
n Shape of a large heron (including tucked in neck)
n Largely orange-brown plumage
n Long yellow legs and huge yellow feet
n Long orange, dagger-like bill
BIRD 3
This one is one of those birds that are much easier to identify frozen on the page in a photograph, rather than whizzing by in the field. The largely all-dark plumage, cigar-shaped body and long sickle-shaped wings and minuscule bill tell you this is surely a swift of some sort (those wings are too long even for a swallow or a martin). But, even allowing for bright sunlight, this bird is surely too pale for a (Common) Swift, which look almost black in most light. This is one of the paler brown swifts which lack a white rump. Pallid Swift or Alpine Swift, perhaps. The latter has a cleanly defined white throat, and narrow breast band, before a white lower breast and belly. This bird has a diffuse pale chin patch and no white on the belly, plus the rounded wing tips and scaly plumage of a Pallid Swift.
Key features
n Swift-shaped, with long, sickle-shaped wings
n Plumage paler than Swift and ‘scaly’
n Large, diffuse, pale, chin patch
n Slightly rounded wing tips
BIRD 4
Here is a pretty, greenish, yellow and white, thin-billed little bird. Surely, those colour combinations and the shape of the bird mean this is a warbler of some kind. Only the Hippolais and Phylloscopus (aka leaf) warblers have such yellow and green tones. But the Hippolais warblers lack dark eyestripes or clear wing-stripes: this is a Phylloscopus warbler. In fact, most of the leaf warblers also lack such prominent wing-bars and such strong supericila ( pale ‘eyebrows’). The intensity of the yellow supercilium suggests this is either a Yellow-browed Warbler or a Pallas’s Leaf Warbler. The main giveaways in this photograph are the tiny black bill and the bright yellow central crown stripe. In other views, a yellow rump would be visible: this is a Pallas’s Leaf Warbler.
Key features
n Cute, strikingly-patterned warbler
n Green upperparts, yellow supercilium and wing-bars
n Tiny black bill
n Obvious yellow central crown stripe
BIRD 5
This bird has an odd combination of a Garden Warbler-like pattern yet, with a chunky structure like a Starling. Let’s explore that Starling-like shape a bit further: chunky build, long, strong legs, short tail, longish, strong-based, pointed bill, with a hint of a down-curve, and long primaries (the long outer flight feathers). So, perhaps it is a Starling? Juvenile Starlings are strikingly different from their blackish, iridescent, spotted parents, wrapped in brown plumage. But they have obvious dark lores (the area between the bill and eye), black bills and underparts the same colour as the upperparts. This pale-lored, yellow-billed, pale plumaged, yellow-billed bird is a juvenile Rose-coloured Starling.
Key features
n Pallid, starling-shaped bird (short tail, long wings)
n Yellowish bill
n Pale lores
n Neatly pale-fringed dark wing feathers
BIRD 6
We finish with an obvious goose. Actually, there are two species in the photo: the thick-necked orange-billed, pink-legged ones in the background are Greylag Geese. The foreground bird is the intriguing one; clearly another grey goose (genus Anser), it is a long-necked species with a long bill in orange and black. The legs are also orange (ruling out Pink-footed Goose). The lack of belly bands or a white ‘ front’, plus the black on the bill rule out White-fronted Goose. So this appears to be one of the bean geese. The Tundra Bean has similar structure to the Pink-footed Goose, with a shorter neck and bill than this bird, which is a Taiga Bean Goose, an increasingly scarce winter visitor (mainly to parts of Norfolk).
Key features
n Greylag Geese for comparison n Long-necked Anser goose n Long orange and black bill n Orange legs