How good are you at avian ID? Identification quizzes abound, and I find them both fun and educational. Some are really difficult, made for experts. Mine are more aimed at the beginning to intermediate birder. Who knows, maybe I’ll even slip in a few that have me confounded.
I aim to post one quiz a month during 2012. My answers will be provided the following Monday. And please note: I am certainly not an expert at this. If I get something wrong, let me know. I can always stand to improve my own skills!
Many quizzes don’t include any information about where or when the photos were taken. That doesn’t seem fair to me. In real life birding, we always (hopefully!) know where we are and what the date is. Of course, birds tend to stray a bit, so I’m not sure how helpful this information is going to be.
OK, here we go. My first quiz includes two birds in one photo. I took the picture in Colorado in February. Are both birds the same … or not? Can you identify them? I’ll give my answer next Monday.
Mountain Plover 
Oh fun! I would say they are not the same and that the bottom one might be a female house finch ( oh I am so going to be wrong on these!) Or maybe they are male/female couple of something…..
Here’s a hint: they are both female birds. So often we memorize what the males look like, but not the harder-to-distinguish females. Yet half the birds out there are females. Does that help?