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Congratulations with 100% Dave!

Congrats to all the high scorers

Now...........mine is going in today.......... perhaps 4/10 will be too high for me to reach

Well done hilda , and davejenny for 100%

Thank you Tosha!

Sharifa and Tosha - your score is, as suspected, waaaaaaaaay better than mine Well done! Not saying what I got but it was between 0 and 4............

Pardon my ignorance, but how are some mites getting 5.7 or 6.7 out of 10? Does this mean that they are getting part of an answer correct ?

It's probably if you get 2 out of the 3 species correct for the 2nd trick question. Each species is probably worth 0.33 in that question.

Ok thanks - that makes sense .... with my dismal score I probably didn't even feature on that one!

Thanks MattAxel - was also a bit confused how that was worked out! ............and definitely did not feature in that section

Johan, sorry that I am not able to contribute to this week's ID Challenge this week.

Good luck to all of the other 'mites.

ID Challenge #25

I hope you enjoy the challenge.

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10.

Please remember to send the answers to me via PM

Challenge #24 of 2012 had mixed results with some ‘mites scoring very well and others battling a bit. Returning an average score of 70.6%, this was more in line with the difficulty level I want to maintain.

This challenge had the lowest participation level for a while with only 14 ‘mites sending entries. The results are as follows:
One ‘mite scored 1;
two ‘mites scored 4;
five ‘mites scored between 5 and 7;
four scored around 9;
and two ‘mites got all the answers right.



#1 – Grey-winged Francolin [10] . Some confusion with Red-winged and Orange River Francolin is apparent. pantera leo points out the salient features: Grey speckling on the throat and lacking the yellow base to the bill seen in Red-winged, Orange River and Shelley's Francolin. That last bit about the all-dark bill is a feature that stands out like a sore thumb if you know to look for it!



#2 – Cory's Shearwater [8] . MattAxel writes: The combination of the brown back and yellow bill separates it from all the other Shearwaters found in our region.



#3 – Drakensberg Rockjumper, female. [13] . No issues here.



#4 – Bearded Vulture, immature [10] . Roan writes: Tail and wing shape. Destinctive beard sticking out along the beak.




#5 – Pintado Petrel [13] . I expected more of a battle to manifest with this bird… in the end it caused very little trouble.



#6 – Drakensberg Siskin [10] . MattAxel found that the: 2nd bonus question helped here because I knew it must be Drakensberg, not Cape Siskin, to be the 3rd Drakensberg bird in the challenge . But you can sort of see the white outer-tail feathers here which distinguish it from Cape Siskin.

I try to keep the twists related to the challenge birds… If ‘mites realize that, it can serve up ID clues!



#7 – Ground Woodpecker [9] . Ladybirder writes: Pale eye, red on chest,long sharp bill. If you haven’t seen one before, it can be daunting to “place” the bird!

TWISTS

#1 – Roughly three percent of its total South African population officially carry “pet names”. Which species am I referring to?

Around 400 Bearded Vultures exist in South Africa and Lesotho. [6] Of these 17 have been fitted with transmitters. davejenny shares his source: The Bearded Vulture Project, Maluti-Drakensberg Vulture Project

adrianp suggested: With a moustache like that, one tracked vulture should be named "Pieter de Villiers!

Some tragic events have unfolded around Olivia recently about which I will post an account later today.

#2 – Three of our featured birds all have distributions limited to the same area in South Africa, which birds are these?

Challenge Birds #3, #4 and #6 [10] .

#3 – One of the featured species is part of Greek folklore. It inadvertently caused the death of a famous playwright. How?

adrianp wrote: The Greek playwright Aeschylus was said to have been killed in 456 or 455 BC by a tortoise dropped by an eagle who mistook his bald head for a stone - if this incident did occur, the Lammergeier is a likely candidate for the "eagle". [12] .

The best part about a challenge is learning where you went wrong!

Thanks Johan and pantera leo

thank you Johan and pantera leo