ID Challenge #10 - closes 14 April 2011

[Neil Fitzgerald]

bstephenson__28K7354.jpg (74.58 KiB) Viewed 16165 times

Answers for this challenge are due by replying to this topic by midnight (NZDT) on Thursday 14 April 2011.

Click here for the rules.

Answers will not be visible to anyone else until after the closing date.

The winner of the 2010-2011 ID Quiz will get one free place on a scheduled Wrybill Birding Tours, NZ pelagic trip, AND each person who enters this challenge goes into the draw to win a pair of Nikon Travelite V 8x25CF binoculars just for having a go, thanks to Photo & Video International.

Thanks to our competition sponsors:

[ledzep]

The white flashes on the under-wing make it look like a Skua - but a Brown Skua or a South Polar Skua? The wing shape doesn't look right for a Harrier or Kite. The puzzling bit is what seems to be a white flash on the rump. On that basis I'll go with a pale phase South Polar Skua. (Not sure why a tree is in the picture with one of these Skuas).

[Richard Schofield]

I think it has to be a Laughing Kookaburra

[GrahameNZ]

As a stab in the dark how about a Southern Skua, Catharacta lonnbergi ??

[Will Parsons]

We found this very challenging, we first thought a immature harrier but have decided it is a brown skua.

[igor]

The fact this was posted on April Fool's Day has me concerned.... The only bird I can come up with is Dollarbird.

[TonyWilson]

Well as Sav rightly said "this is a stinker"! The white under wing flashes narrows it down and I have to go with Arctic Skua even though a few clues don't add up but I'm hoping to put these down to the variable plumage of this species. The tail looks the right shape but the rich chestnut colouring is concerning also the yellowish flash on the under wing doesn't seem right nor the white patch at the base of the tail but nothing else fits as well as the Arctic Skua? The tree is a nice distraction but Arctic Skua have been seen inland occasionally.
Cheers, Tony.

[David Riddell]

I really have no idea. Just to keep my hand in I'll go for a skua of some sort on the basis of the white wing flashes and dark rump and tail, even if it doesn't really look like one. Maybe Arctic Skua since that's the commonest and hence rather more likely than the others to be caught flying past a tree.

[Peter Frost]

Brown Skua? [ thinks......] Brown Skua

[igor]

Not sure if my post worked yesterday - got an error message. Am going dollarbird.