Sunday, January 13, 2008

Answers to Bird Quiz

If you're curious about the answers to Friday's bird quiz, I've added them to that post. Once again, I want to thank all of you who participated in the quiz. I was curious today and did a little "self-quiz" by going through one of my field guides and writing down the names of birds I knew I would recognize on sight (or by call - in the case of owls). I would encourage any of you who might be interested to try this yourself.....I think you might be surprised by how many birds you actually do recognize--especially regional birds that are specific to your geographic location.

I also tried the Cornell quiz that Ruth posted in her comment. The link is here:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/birding123/identify/quiz

This was a fun quiz to take because it contained a variety of birds and also their calls. My shorebird ID skills are really weak and I only got the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs on this quiz because I knew their calls. I've never been very good at identifying these birds because I don't get enough opportunities to see them (on account of the fact that there are very few lakes in Olmsted County--even though Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes!).

Back on January 1st, Richard posted one of his new year's resolutions: to photograph and identify 5 new birds in 2008. I think this is a great resolution and one I'm going to work on also.

So here are the winners of the quiz who identified 21 or more of the birds correctly:
1. Dad
2. Larry (from The Brownstone Birding Blog)
3. Loribird (From the Wool Room blog)
4. Trixie (Trixie's View blog)
5. Ruth (Body, Soul and Spirit blog)

Richard got quite a few correct, but he later sent me an e-mail confessing that he didn't read the instructions correctly and checked his field guide for some of the answers (so I'll send him a consolation prize anyway for being honest).

P.S. to Larry and Loribird: I don't have your USPS mailing address, so if you'll e-mail me your address, I can get your prize mailed out in the next couple weeks. Thanks!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Your Dad got first place, I just told him and he was surprised. It's fun to be bird watchers for both of us. With a new cold front moving in there will be a lot of activity at all of our feeders.
Mom

Mary said...

This was fun, Ruthie. You need to do this a few times a year to keep us beginners and experts in check! Loved it.

Congratulatiosn to DAD and all the rest who did so well!

Ruth said...

Yes, that Cornell quiz was challenging, especially the water birds. I wouldn't have won any prizes on it! I hope it is not too much trouble to pay for postage to Canada. I should drive to MN to save you the trouble ;-)

Meggie said...

Great fun, let's do it again! Congrats to your Dad!! So nice to know that it's a Family Affair...I know you've written about you and Sissy on your birding treks.

RuthieJ said...

Hi Mom,
Dad won first place because he was one of the first responders and he only got one bird wrong.

Hi Mary,
Thanks for playing along. Next time, I'll include a few less common birds....

Hi Ruth,
The postage isn't a problem, although if I had a passport, I would rather do a driving trip across the border too.

Hi Meggie,
Hope you learned a couple new birds from the quiz too. I'm glad my family members take time to read my blog too. With all of our busy schedules, we don't get much time to see each other in person.