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Don’t blame me! I didn’t do it! Blame the bird for running out of the frame! Besides, while the bill might have helped, it might not have. Second besides, there are only four reasonable options for the bird’s identification, so you’re just going to have to do it without the bill.

Given the excellent size comparison with the leaves and stems, this month’s quiz bird must be rather small. There seems to be an eye ring; obvious white wing bars; white leading edges to the tertials; long-ish primary projection; a short-ish tail; and olive back, nape, and crown. Some birders will immediately recognize the bird from two characters...

Individual birds clinging to a tree in this bird’s manner are frequently woodpeckers but could be any of a number of species, some of which do not habitually perch in this fashion. The seemingly large patch of white on what might be the wings rules out Brown Creeper and various nuthatch species among the relatively few inveterate bark-clinging ABA-Area bird species. That white patch also rules out various species that I have seen irregularly or rarely engaging in bark-clinging behavior such as flycatchers, vireos, jays, warblers, and even sparrows.

A bit of an odd little bird this month and one that would be, perhaps, more readily identified if the quiz were a video rather than a static photo. There is not much choice but to comb through the various species of ABA-Area shorebirds, and August is certainly a good month for those in most or all of the ABA Area. Distinctive features include…. Hmm, maybe I’ll leave determining those to the quiz takers. I will say, however, that one of those distinctive features is frequently overlooked when misidentifying this species for another.

There are not a lot of ABA-Area bird families that could claim a bird that looks like this, what with those long legs, strongly patterned tawny wings, and strongly black-barred tawny tail. In fact, most observers probably immediately narrowed the bird down to just a couple of species, neither of which is at all rare in the ABA Area...

Don’t you just love looking up at the nether regions of birds? I can imagine some quiz takers crying foul, but the bird is identifiable. In fact, it’s easily identifiable. One simply must be aware of the usefulness of certain characters, and that awareness takes study, both of field guides and of actual birds.

While driving through open country on a lovely May day, this brown bird pops up onto a fence and poses for a time. One might consider passing it by as it is obviously one of those brown sparrowy things.

With this quiz photo, April seems to be setting up as raptorial-thing month in the ABA Photo Quiz. If I remember, perhaps that will continue next year. The color pattern immediately rules out all ABA-Area vulture species and falcon species, including Crested Caracara, leaving us with ...

Driving down the road, you spot what seems an odd-looking bird for one perched on a roadside wire. You stop and get only a one- or two-second view before your presence flushes the bird into the nearby woodlot on private property.

While some may be confounded by this photo quiz, others will nail it immediately. One of the benefits of really looking at birds, really studying them, is the little kernels of knowledge that such scrutiny can impart, items that might, down the road, enable certain ID of a bird seen poorly.

There are at least two features that often distinguish between skilled, experienced birders and others when it comes to large flocks of birds. The first is the understanding that just because many or most of the individuals of a large flock of birds appear to be referable to the same species does not necessarily mean that such an assumption is true for the entire flock.

While some might immediately recognize the species represented here, others may have to work out the ID. That difference is often the primary one between skilled, experienced birders and others. Research on how skilled practitioners of birding has shown that such use a different portion of their brains to identify individuals of species they know well than do birders that do not know the species well or at all.

Quiz photo taken late October.
Ahh, one of those pale, gull things. At least it’s not a member of Larus!
Or is it?

As any of the folks that have conducted migrating-waterbird counts – seawatches – can say, ducks in flight are relatively straightforward to identify. First, there’s flight style, which does a reasonably good job of allowing quick discernment as to whether one is looking at dabblers or divers...

The first response of some quiz-takers might well be, “What a horrible photo, particularly for a quiz photo!” Others, however, may well jump on the correct identification immediately. For those of us that are not accomplished at or comfortable with identification by shape, posture, and behavior, this could certainly provide for a difficult quiz. Those that had the second response posited above would have gotten the ID solely on shape and posture, perhaps aided by behavior.

Back to the quiz bird being in flight. Aren’t you glad last month’s wasn’t?! There’s not much interesting showing this month. The quiz bird looks long- and narrow-winged, which, if accurate, certainly helps rule out some possibilities...

A quick look at this month’s quiz bird’s feet, more specifically how the toes are attached to the foot, should get us into the correct bird order, as the passerine foot is distinctive. Another important, but widely overlooked bird-ID feature is our quiz bird’s...

This time we have a lovely, pristine, perfectly lit, perfectly posed bird that shows all the field marks we need to identify it correctly to species. Did you believe any of that? This month’s quiz bird of a bird photographed in August might confound a number of quiz takers as to which family it belongs, although at least the order should be straightforward.

Not a very good photo this month. Right? While I generally try to have reasonably good photos with the quiz subject in reasonably good focus, birding is not really like that. We do not see most individual birds well, and, at least for those with “good ears,” most birds that we detect are not seen at all.