Disappointing. That is the only word I can come up with to describe the answers provided by the folks who guessed at the identities of the birds in Yet Another Diabolical Bird ID Quiz. Sure, Jason, overlook, and bevson each managed to get two out of four correct, but that is still a failing grade in any class not graded on a curve. I don’t know, I guess I should be happy that a diabolical bird quiz actually proved so diabolical that no one could get more than 50% correct and one bird remained completely unidentified, especially considering that it is one of the most widespread birds on the planet, but still I had expected more out of you 10,000 Birds readers.

Now that I have taken you to task for your shortcomings in identifying birds portrayed in a way that you will never see them in real life I shall show you what you were actually looking at when you took your futile guesses…

The first bird, correctly identified only by Jason, is a Brown-headed Cowbird. Maybe I should have included some of the brown head to make it easier…

part of a Brown-headed Cowbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Bird number two, correctly identified by several of the guessers, is a Common Grackle.

part of a Common Grackle

Common Grackle

Bird number three, first identified by the first guesser, Jack, is a Wood Thrush.

part of a Wood Thrush

Wood Thrush

And the final bird, the one that I thought would be relatively easy to figure out seeing as they are almost everywhere, is the lowly House Sparrow, a fledgling House Sparrow.

part of a fledgling House Sparrow

fledgling House Sparrow

Too hard this time? It won’t be long until our next diabolical quiz…so come on back and try again next time!

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.