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1 What is the principal diet of the European Bee-eater?
2 What is the principal diet of the Macaroni Penguin?
3 Which American sparrow is named after Charles Darwin’s mentor at Cambridge?
4 How many ossicles do birds have in their middle ear?
5 Which has the longer tail – Caspian Tern or Cuckoo?
6 Name two of the three species of Critically Endangered ducks that are not confined to islands?
7 For a bonus, name the third.
8 What mammal was responsible for the deaths of both Prince Ruspoli and Johan Wahlberg after whom a turaco and eagle are named?
9 Which well-known ornithologist, who died this year, wrote The Private Life of the Street Pigeon in 1979 and also recorded Witherby’s Sound Guide to British Birds with Myles North?
10 Which of the following birds does not exist: Kiwi, Pewee, Weewee, Iiwi?
11 What is a sod in Shetland?
12 What is the connection between the Silver Invicta, the Golden Olive Bumble and the (Eurasian) Jay?
13 What is the matter with a falconer’s hawk if it has craye?
14 What birds can be Broad-tailed, Pin-tailed, Shaft-tailed and Straw-tailed?
15 Which philosopher and ornithologist, born 2,393 years ago, is commemorated in the Latin name of a British seabird?
16 Who is the Director of the British Trust for Ornithology?
17 Which is the only warbler included in the Farmland Bird Index?
18 When was the Neotropical Bird Club founded?
19 Which is the only species of crane that has an increasing population trend?
20 Prior to the 2001 record of Magpie on St Martin’s, how many had previously been recorded on Scilly?
2010 A
Pete Morris – ABC
Answers: see here
1 Of which American state is the Rhode Island Red the state bird?
2 In which decade did Sir Peter Scott first notice the significance of bill patterns to enable individual Bewick’s Swans to be told apart?
3 When was the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands signed? Was it 1961, 1971 or 1981?
4 In which country is Ramsar after which the International Convention on Wetlands is named?
5 In which county have both Pacific auks on the British List been recorded?
6 Where would you go to see Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis?
7 What material did the Japanese use to make mist-nets for catching birds for food during World War II, and which were subsequently adopted in 1956 for ringing?
8 Which of the following birds does not exist: Minute Piculet, Miniature Tit-babbler, Tiny Hawk, Small Minivet?
9 What species of swan was found dead at Cellardyke from avian flu in 2006?
10 What species was it at first thought to be?
11 What species has hybridised with chickens, guineafowl, two species of goose, 41 species of duck and has also indulged in homosexual necrophilia?
12 Kakapo only breed when the fruit of which trees are superabundant?
13 ‘On a tree by a river a little tom-tit – sang “willow, titwillow titwillow …”’ comes from The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan. What was the tom-tit?
14 What is the title of the African Bird Club journal?
15 In 1456 what finch species was the first to be involved in singing competitions in Europe?
16 What birds can be Velvet-mantled, White-bellied, Crow-billed, Fork-tailed or Hair-crested?
17 What is ptilochronology used to measure?
18 Who wrote the foreword for either the first or the second Atlas of Breeding Birds of Britain and Ireland?
19 In which country is BANCA the BirdLife partner?
20 What is a ‘mock nightingale’ according to Gilbert White?
2010 B
James Eaton – OBC
Answers: see here
1 Where would you go to see Troglodytes troglodytes zetlandicus?
2 Which adult passerine on the British List has red underparts and a broken eye-ring?
3 Of which American state is the Carolina Wren the state bird?
4 Which Finnish biologist had an Endangered Asian wader and the most popular variety of Christmas tree named after him?
5 What was the first British-ringed bird to be recovered abroad?
6 What bird was Shelley referring to when he wrote: ‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!/Bird thou never wert,/That from heaven, or near it/Pourest thy full heart/In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.’
7 Which mammal have Great Tits been found regularly killing and eating in the Bukk Mountains in Hungary?
8 Which of the following birds does not exist: Cherry-throated Tanager, Orange-throated Tanager, Strawberry-spectacled Tanager, Lemon-spectacled Tanager?
9 183 kites and 285 buzzards were killed between 1807 and 1816 by game-keeping interests at the Burley Estate. Where is the Burley Estate?
10 What was the ornithological discovery of Edward Jenner (who introduced vaccination against smallpox), which resulted in his election to the Royal Society in 1789?
11 What is the ornithological traditional bingo call for 22?
12 Who was the compiler of the first Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland?
13 When was the last wild California Condor taken into captivity to join a captive-breeding programme? Was it 1987, 1989 or 1991?
14 In which country was the only certain specimen of the Red Sea Swallow found (in 1984)?
15 What bird was Gilbert White referring to when he wrote about a Jar Bird?
16 What is the journal of Neotropical Bird Club?
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