Bird Brain: Over 2,400 Questions to Test Your Bird Knowledge

10  What is Gurney’s Pitta’s current IUCN Red List categorization?

11  When were Porro prismatic binoculars invented, within 5 years?

12  What bird’s song was described by Bobby Tulloch as ‘the sound of fairies being sick’?

13  An individual of which species of albatross wearing a ‘geolocator’ on its leg was recorded to have circumnavigated the Southern Ocean in 46 days, having travelled a minimum of 22,000 km?

14  Which of the following does not exist – Puna Tinamou, Pampas Tinamou, Chaco Tinamou or Choco Tinamou?

15  Common Quail and Turtle Doves in Vojvodina in Serbia are especially threatened by what or who?

16  From where do the eggs used for the current Great Bustard reintroduction programme on Salisbury Plain come (omitting the obvious answer)?

17  Which site won the BTO/Hanson Business Bird Challenge ‘Major Wetland’ category with 188 species recorded in 2004 – beating Rutland Water by three?

18  What percentage of bird species have been recorded hybridising with other species?

19  What percentage of male Mute Swans are estimated to be killed by other swans in territorial disputes in the UK?

20  What was the occupation of John Henry Gurney, after whom the Pitta is named?

2005 C

Nigel Jones – Ornitholidays

Answers: see here (#litres_trial_promo)

1  What colour is the tail of the Azure-winged Magpie?

2  When were Gannets first recorded breeding on Sule Skerry in the Orkneys?

3  Which Western Palaearctic raptor was made ‘Person of the week’ on the ABC TV World News Tonight programme, after visiting Martha’s Vineyard?

4  What was the last new species seen by the late Phoebe Snetsinger in Madagascar before her death?

5  What feature of some Feral Pigeons appears to reduce their chances of being caught by a stooping Peregrine when compared with those without this feature?

6  If you saw an Alouette lulu in France, what would you be watching?

7  What unique group defence mechanism do Fieldfares Turdus pilaris use on potential predators?

8  What is the largest bird family on the Sibley/Monroe classification?

9  What development on Dunmaglass Estate in the Highlands is predicted to decimate the Golden Eagle population in the region?

10  What was the Scottish population of Golden Eagles in 2003?

11  Who first described Gurney’s Pitta?

12  Where in the British Isles has the Red-winged Laughingthrush (Garrulax formosus) regularly bred since 1996, having escaped from captivity?

13  Name three of the eight key species targeted in the Scarce Woodland Bird Survey conducted by the BTO in 2005 and 2006?

14  Which of the following does not exist – Mountain White-eye, Mountain Black-eye, Barrow’s Goldeneye or Barrow’s Silver-eye?

15  What bird, according to BWP ‘may attempt to force prey off mountain ledges including sheep, chamois, steinbok and even man’?

16  In the hard winter of 1962/63, what was the highest recorded number of wrens observed entering a single nest-box in Britain?

17  Which species of goose could Roman Catholics eat on Fridays in the belief that it was a fish?

18  The BBC reported the rediscovery of which species on 28th April 2005 (unfortunately getting its name wrong)?

19  Where was the only area in England in which Hen Harriers bred successfully in 2004?

20  What was the 2003 population of the Galapagos Penguin reckoned to be?

2005 D

Brian Small – Limosa

Answers: see here (#litres_trial_promo)

1  What colour are the legs of a breeding Rose-coloured Starling?

2  What bird is on the back of a £10 note with Charles Darwin?

3  Little Auk chicks are usually fed by only one parent at the end of chick-rearing. Which parent?

4  The local extinction of which species in Alderford Common in Norfolk was blamed entirely on one egg-collector, Daniel Lingham, who was prosecuted in March 2005?

5  And what was his sentence?

6  Are there more birds on the British List described as Northern, European or Eurasian?

7  When was the first BTO ‘Inquiry into the Status of the Corncrake or Landrail’?

8  If you saw a Canard colvert in France, what would you be watching?

9  Who first described the Moustached Warbler, has a gull named after him and had an Uncle Napoleon?

10  When was Gurney’s Pitta first described?

11  A pair of which species constructed their nest in Doha, Saudi Arabia, in 1985 of, among other things, a plastic sandal, two pieces of lorry tyre, two left-hand gloves, a pair of gentleman’s underpants (size 32-inch waist) and a complete goatskin?

12  Which of the following does not exist – Sad Flycatcher, Melancholy Woodpecker, Sobbing Pigeon or Lacrimose Mountain-tanager?

13  What is the collective noun for a flock of Great Bustards?