I eventually got the answers to the birds quiz I reposted from "rec.birds"
a while ago.

For those who have forgotten what it's all about, these are quotes from
books describing a scene where a bird is particularly important.
The poster had replaced the name of the particular bird by "______" and
the goal is to find out which bird is refered to in each quote.

I personally only figured the number 1, but, hey, I've just been here
for one year and have only seen ca. 230 species.
The "yellow of their breast and the spotted brown of their backs and
the lengths of their bills" was easy enough for me :-)

I've included the entire message, including the poster's email address
if any of you may want to contact this guy directly to thank (or flame :-)
him directly for his quiz...

OK, here's the stuff:

****************END OF INCLUDED MESSAGE**********************
From: Frederick Thurber <thurber at hks.com>
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: bird quiz two - answers
Date: 1 Nov 1995 18:49:33 GMT
Organization: Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: saturn.hks.com


Sorry I am so late in posting these answers, but I was
unexpectantly offline for about a month (note that I have a
new email address).

(1)
We topped another rise and I pointed again to the farthest
hill in sight. "Farther than that one?"
Father laughed. "That hill is this side of Gary, and Gary is
just about halfway there."
So I watched the ______ on the fence posts at the sides of the
road, saw the yellow of their breast and the spotted brown of
their backs and the lengths of their bills. I watched the
funny way they flew on their stubby wings. As I listened to their
songs it seemed that they were saying, "This is the time to see the
world!" and "Hello there, boy!"

--Hal Borland describing his first visit in 1910, with his
father, to their homestead on the prairies of eastern Colorado
in "High, Wide and Lonesome", 1956

Answer: MEADOWLARK. I am not sure whether he meant Eastern or Western;
"Hello there, boy" sounds like Eastern, but I have never heard the
Western's song. No matter. This is a beautiful, evocative book by a
famous, but now largely forgotten, nature writer. Borland did the NY Time
nature columns for many years.



(2)
...But as the the sun set that first night on Machias Seal,
the fog brought quick darkness. Sitting on the rocks, we watched the
lighting of the oil lamp high above us in the lighthouse tower...
"Listen!" Allan caught my hand. "Listen to that bluebirdlike
warble. It is the ________s. They are all around the lighthouse."
...Shadowy forms, small and graceful, were darting about in
the beams of the light from the tower. They were giving strange cries,
musical, quavering trills which were still low and guttural. Put to
words, they resembled - "Pleased to meet you. How do you do?"
In spite of weariness, the invitation of those curious birds
could not be ignored. We raced to the lighthouse and quickly climbing
the winding stairs, we went out on the narrow, railed walk around the
tower just below the light. The ____s were all about us. Now and then
one would brush us with its wings. Occasionally one bumped with a dull
thud against the glass enclosing the light. Apparently uninjured, they
would flutter briefly and resume their wavering, mothlike flight.

--Helen Cruickshank, "Bird Islands Down East", 1941

Answer: LEACH'S STORM PETREL. These wonderous birds are largely nocturnal
on their nesting grounds. Allan and Helen are famous for their nature
photography and other bird-related activities. Note how much more rustic
Machis Seal was then! A good book from a bygone era.


(3)
"Friendly, tolerant, gregarious birds, they like to roost each
night on the same dead pine below. One by one they spiral downward
giving transparent figures in the air while others maintained a holding
pattern, sinking slowly gradually, as if reluctant to leave the heights
toward the lime-spattered branches of the snag. ... Gathered on their
favorite dead tree, heads nodding together, the ____ resembled from our
vantage point a convocation of bald, politic, funeral directors
discussing business prospects - always good, dependable."

--Edward Abbey, "Watching the Birds", writing

Answer:TURKEY VULTURE. Abbey wrote this as he was describing about the
birds below his fire lookout tower where he worked (not very hard)
as a fire warden. He noted in the same account that he wanted to be
reincarnated as this species; I hope he got his wish.


(4)
It is a high, resonant single unvaried tone that fades at the
end toward a lower register. It has caused panic, because it
has been mistaken for the cry of a wolf, but it is far too ghostly for
that. It is detached from the earth. The Crees believed that it was the
cry of a dead warrier forbidden entry to Heaven. The Chipewyans heard
it as an augury of death. Whatever it may portend, it is the
predominent sound in this county. Every time the ____ cry comes, it
sketched its own surroundings - a remote lake under stars so bright
they whiten the clouds, a horizon jagged with spruce.
--John McPhee, "The Survival of the Bark Caneo", 1975

Answer: COMMON LOON. This is from marvelous and hilarious book
McPhee wrote about following Thoreau's Maine route using birch bark
canoes.


(5)
A gentle hollow spreads before us for several acres literally
covered with the ranks of the much desired, the matchless ___.
As they stand in serried legions, the white mark on their
heads gives a strange checkered weirdness to the phalanx; and we
involuntarily pause, spellbound by the novelty of the
spectacle.

--Robert Roosevelt describing shorebird hunting on Long Island in
"Game Birds of the North", 1884.

Answer: GOLDEN PLOVER. This was a difficult question. Although the
Passenger Pigeon is usually cited as an example of the market hunting
excesses of the 19th century, there are many other birds that suffered.
After the Pigeon was exterminated, market and sport gunners turned their
sights on the shorebirds. Unfortunately many of the shorebirds have never
recovered (especially the Eskimo Curlew which could be extinct), and the
Golden Plover is one example.


(6)
After the arrival of the thrushes [thrashers] came the _____s,
gushing, gurgling, inexhaustible fountains of song, pouring forth
floods of sweet notes over the broad Fox River meadows in wonderful
variety and volumne, crowded and mixed beyond description, as they
hovered on quivering wings above their hidden nests in the grass. It
seemed marvelous to us that birds so moderate in size could hold so
much of this wonderful song stuff.
--John Muir

Answer: BOBOLINK.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope everyone enjoyed these quotes; they are some of my
favorites. Please let me know if you think that these are too
easy. I hope to have Quiz Three ready in a few weeks. This will
include an amusing quote from Farely Mowat describing his childhood
attempts to keep wild birds as pets and what surely must be the worst
one anyone has ever tried to tame.
Also some poetry from Whitman and Frost...
****************END OF INCLUDED MESSAGE**********************

--
v--------------------------------------------------
A bird in the bush is better than two in the hand.

Serge Le Huitouze Intelligent Software Group
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca School of Computing Science
tel: (604) 291-5423 Simon Fraser University
fax: (604) 291-3045 Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6 CANADA
http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~serge/