Ornithology B/C

[paleonaps]

@googlyfrog: yeah, you're right about that.
The event supervisors for states should have to check the national clarifications and state clarifications for their events. The thing with the lists was not fair at all.
PS: Anybody who took the NY test, what was the first bird at the Herring Gull station. I thought it was a GBBG, but I wasn't sure... but the GBBG was the only bird on the list that looked anything like it.

Also, did you notice that one of the sound stations had the file name BLBRD at the bottom?

[FueL]

@Naps: If I'm remembering the right station, we thought it was an immature Laughing Gull.

Nope, didn't notice that at all. All I can remember about the sound stations was that we put Song Sparrow and Eastern Bluebird for two of them.

[amerikestrel]

Just a tip: make sure you know all parts and all sides of every bird on the list. At our state competition they had stuffed birds or fake ones that looked real (couldn't tell) at each station and you couldn't flip them over or touch them and sometimes they would be at the worst possible angle. For example, you might remember the red winged blackbird b/c it has red on its wing. But if you can't see that distinguishing red because of the angle of the bird, you might not get the question. Anyways, try to find more than one distinguishing feature for each bird, that you can use for any angle the bird may be shown at. This goes for competitions with powerpoints too. This was just a problem we personally ran into.

Yeah, I hated that! I couldn't identify several of the birds because they were lying on their backs. Do you remember the bird that somewhat resembled a duck, but was mostly black/dark blue? I couldn't identify that one; do you know what it was?

[junexia]

do you remember what station it was at or what questions went with it? was it lying down or was it on one of those stands?

and also, a lot of those stuffed birds didnt have eyeballs, and not only was that extremely creepy, it was also really annoying because eye color can be very helpful in identifying bird species

[googlyfrog]

@amerikestrel: i think you might be talking about the same one junexia and i were stuck on. it was standing up on the last station on your left in the second row...it was black-ish. we left that ID blank. did you happen to get the one in the back row on the right side that was a small black bird lying on its back? we were stumped.

yeah all their eyes were like covered with some sort of white stuff.

[googlyfrog]

Wait, amerikestrel, what school are you from?

[junexia]

dont double post, just edit your previous post, googlyfrog. tsk tsk

and the bird was not blackish, it was only the head part. it was mostly yellowish greenish white. and the bird was definitely pretty big too.

[amerikestrel]

@amerikestrel: i think you might be talking about the same one junexia and i were stuck on. it was standing up on the last station on your left in the second row...it was black-ish. we left that ID blank. did you happen to get the one in the back row on the right side that was a small black bird lying on its back? we were stumped.

yeah all their eyes were like covered with some sort of white stuff.

I think this bird was lying down, so it probably wasn't the one you're referring to. I'm pretty sure one of the birds was the green heron, was that the one you were stumped on? And I remember the small black one; I put Corvus americanus but that was just a guess.

Did you get the game bird that was on the left side of the room (I think)? And the bird in the front left was a bald eagle, right? The white feathers looked really dirty; almost grey; and they told me it was mounted over 100 years ago.

Wait, amerikestrel, what school are you from?

Mount Nittany Middle School. We didn't place in ornith ( ) because I messed up a lot of the identification, and I only got 5th in fossils. Oh well, there's always next year.

[junexia]

well googlyfrog and i were thinking about green heron, but we didnt think it looked like it enough to be that, and we ended up leaving it blank. but i realllllly wanna know what that bird was. for the bird in the left front, we said it was the golden eagle, cuz bald eagles have white heads...

[paleonaps]

@Naps: If I'm remembering the right station, we thought it was an immature Laughing Gull.

Nope, didn't notice that at all. All I can remember about the sound stations was that we put Song Sparrow and Eastern Bluebird for two of them.

I checked that, but it didn't seem right in my book. Oh, well.....
I think we put American Robin and Eastern Bluebird and House Finch. We need to study songs...........