Another hidden head bird? Not fair. Well, it seems that this was far easier than we thought. Just about everyone who played this quiz got the answer right—and those who didn't? Well, we suspect some nonsense was involved there.
So we do have a bird with a hidden head, but in this case we can see that it's mostly black with broad rufous edging to the tertials and greater coverts and prominent white spots to the underparts (that seem to be wearing off). As our answers show, there just aren't many birds that fit that pattern. And the one that does is a familiar backyard bird across most of the ABA area. In this case, we needn't make this harder than it was. This European Starling was photographed Ithaca, New York during January 2007.
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The following people (listed by submission date beginning with the earliest) submitted correct answers for the February Bird Photo Quiz—European Starling:
As stated in the quiz rules, answers must consist simply of the Common or English name exactly as it appears in the ABA Checklist.
The following list shows the number of submissions for each species guessed.
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The photo and answer for this quiz were supplied by Chris Wood.