We’ve been rather happy to discover how much people have been enjoying this ongoing Bird Quiz series. The great thing is we’re unlikely to ever run out of material, so expect one about every fortnight….
Summer has started to present a real birding challenge, as a number of species are only found here for these few months of the year. Others that are resident year-round start changing their plumage, and one’s whole birding compass has to be re-calibrated in order to make sense of everything.
Some migrants breed here, some don’t; some are brightly coloured, some are drab. It’s always a shock to be driving along and suddenly encounter a bird you haven’t seen in half a year, and as hard as you try, you can’t seem to access the deeper recesses of your brain to make that identification. When you work it out eventually you always find yourself going, “Of course!”, but without fail, summer brings with it a whole host of new birding challenges.
A lot of what I said above was just fluff to buy some time, as I didn’t know how best to contextualise this week’s bird best.
It might not be a migrant. It might be in breeding plumage. Male? Female? Juvenile?
I’ll stop now before I inadvertently give something away or cloud the issue even more…
Check in on Friday to find out the answer, and of course to view The Week in Pictures.
Good luck…
![Hamerkop Diving For Plattana [rcb] (26)](https://media.londolozi.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/10105855/Hamerkop-Diving-for-Plattana-RCB-26-280x178.jpg)
Sedge warbler.
can it be a thrush ??
Hello James!
I think it is a Spotted Flycatcher, it is an adult. I can’t tell if it is a female or a male because both sexes are similar. Thank you for a fantastic blog!
I am calling it as a female Violet-backed Starling (Cinnyricinclus leucogaster). Males are always a dead give away with the iridescent plum colour. Heavily streaked below points to the female. As they are breeding migrants it could also possibly be a juvenile but as I can’t see the eye colour and it might be a bit early in the season for a juvenile to be fully fledged I’ll stick with a female.
Really enjoying the challenges. It’s always nice to brush up the migrant birding skills when they start arriving back.
What was the previous bird? was it a dark chanting goshawk? I can’t find the answers
Hi James,
Off the bat it looks like a female Violet-backed Starling but the light on the pic is not that great in the throat area, so it could be a male bird in transitional plumage. The belly stripes, angle of the leg to the body, length of the leg and very shallow angle between beak and forehead are what I am relying on. Also, as far as I can see the back coloration fits. How about sending the raw file so we can play with the light to get a view of what you saw through your binoculars, or would that spoil the fun?
Yikes! This is not much of a clue….. I’m going to have to find another bird book.
Groundscraper Thrush.
James, It looks like a Violet-Backed Starling Female.
Female violet-backed starling is my guess.
Hi Everyone,
Some good guesses here, a number of which are correct.
The answer will be revealed in this Friday’s Week in Pictures…
Well, it’s very streked and it has a short bill. I would say either female violet-backed starling or spotted flycatcher. The former is more likely in my mind.