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fossilgirl13 wrote:BTW, I was wondering if female or juvenile bird photos are used on tests.

Females and juveniles do show up occasionally. I remember at nationals last year there was one picture of a female of some species and a bunch of people took forever at that station. I did not have a lot of really good Ornithology tests last year, but I believe the national test was the only one I encountered that showed a sexually dimorphic female. So, to summarize, yes you should learn the female and juvenile plumage, but it really isn't THAT important. If you are new to the event there are lots of other things that are more worth your time to learn.

I've seen females on pretty much every test- no juveniles though.

Does anyone know if PA uses a modified bird list? I don't think they do, but I want to be sure.

AlphaTauri wrote:Does anyone know if PA uses a modified bird list? I don't think they do, but I want to be sure.

Nope, we don't. At least, there wasn't one last year, so I assume that there won't be one this year.

Ok, in the Cornell Lab with bird calls, for some birds there are literally 5 calls... so does anyone know if the test will include songs and mating calls and all of those extra vocalizations?

SFCMS wrote:Ok, in the Cornell Lab with bird calls, for some birds there are literally 5 calls... so does anyone know if the test will include songs and mating calls and all of those extra vocalizations?

There are no guarantees of anything. A test could include obscure vocalizations, but it's very unlikely.

As a rule of thumb- learn the basic song of every bird. THEN learn the obscure ones.

Ok thank you.

And is there a website you guys recommend for studying calls, because I've visited various sites, an on occasions, the calls do not sound the same...

SFCMS wrote:Ok thank you.

And is there a website you guys recommend for studying calls, because I've visited various sites, an on occasions, the calls do not sound the same...

If you want to study a lot of different calls, look at the Macaulay Library. If you want to start with the most common call for each bird, I'd say use the one on allaboutbirds.org.

Ok thanks so much. And what two field guides do you recommend are the best for competition?