Birding Photo Quiz: August 2019

Adult male orioles in breeding plumage are a thing of beauty. And a cinch to identify. You’re in Pennsylvania, say, and it’s May. An Orchard Oriole flies by, or a Baltimore Oriole is singing from the treetops. Easy peasy. The females and second-summer males of those species are more subtly marked, but, still, Orchard vs. Baltimore just isn’t all that hard in Pennsylvania at that time of year. Or you’re in New Mexico, say, and it’s June. Same basic exercise: Bullock’s vs. Scott’s, and this isn’t rocket science.

Now let’s say you’re in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and it’s winter. Whole ’nother ball game. You’ve got a half-dozen species to deal with now, and the subtropical woodlands there are teeming with birds transitioning among all sorts of plumages: first-winter this, second-winter that, immature female, subadult male…maybe even some hybrids mixed in for good measure.

Here’s one:

Join the American Birding Association at www.aba.org!