Last month we asked:

Which automobile manufacturer used the silhouettes of six swallows in its emblem?

The first right answer this time came from Brenda Best , who correctly identified Cadillac as the culprit. In their latest incarnation, the birds more closely resembled ducks than anything else, but in their source–the probably spurious arms of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac–they are identified as merlettes, traditionally said to represent a swallow or martin. James and Susan Dawkins referred us to a useful website, for which many thanks!

This month’s question is more strictly ornithological:

Which breeding landbird of the eastern US and Canada molts its primaries in the sequence 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-10-9?

If you know the answer, leave us a comment. As always, the first correct response, and the most interesting incorrect response, will be rewarded with a WINGS cap.

Which automobile manufacturer’s emblem included the silhouettes of six swallows?

Leave your answer as a comment on this post!

Last month, we asked:

What North American breeding bird has an English name that commemorates a site in the southeastern US and a scientific name that commemorates a site in the northwestern US?

Alexander Wilson first encountered the bird we now call Savannah Sparrow near that city in Georgia. The species had been described in 1789 by Gmelin, who named it sandwichensis for Sandwich Bay, Unalaska, Alaska, where the type was collected. I don’t know any species with a greater geographic gap between its English and its scientific names–do you?

Congratulations to our friend Dave Quady for the first correct response. He’ll soon be wearing a new WINGS cap–and you can, too, if you’re the first to answer correctly the next WINGS trivia question, set to appear in the June e-newsletter.

What do you think? Leave your answer as a comment below–the first correct answer, and the best incorrect answer, will win a WINGS cap.

What North American breeding bird has an English name that commemorates a site in the southeastern US and a scientific name that commemorates a site in the northwestern US?

What is the easternmost county with an accepted record of Varied Thrush?

Leave your answer here as a comment.  As always the first correct answer, and the best incorrect answer, will win a prize!

Last month’s winners were Roger Craik and Austin Saupe; the correct answer was British Columbia, the province that has held CBC records for high counts of many species, among them Golden-crowned Kinglet and Dusky Thrush.

Congratulations to Elwood Hain for identifying Yellow Warbler as the most widespread breeding Dendroica in North America! Elwood wins a WINGS cap–and you can, too, if you’re the first to answer the new trivia question correctly:

Which state or province has tallied record high Christmas Count numbers of all the following species: Golden-crowned Kinglet, Dusky Thrush, Red-throated Pipit, and Brambling?

Leave your answer here as a comment. The first correct answer, and the wittiest, most cogent, or most startling incorrect answer, will win the cap everybody who is anybody’s wearing. 

What is the commonest sandpiper in North America?

Not all scolopacids are called “sandpiper,” and some of them don’t pipe sand at all. The commonest sandpiper in North America, for example, spends most of its time lurking in dark forests, where it is rarely seen except when it emerges for a twilight twirl around its aerial dance floor.

According to the figures cited in The Shorebird Guide, American Woodcock has a North American (and thus a global) population of about 5,000,000 birds; Semipalmated and Western Sandpipers–had I not known the answer, I might have guessed one of those species myself–each tally about 4,000,000 individuals.

Right now is the time to get out and listen for the evening twitterings of woodcock throughout the species’ breeding range. Participants in Paul Lehman’s March tour of Nebraska will probably be the first WINGS group to witness the sky dance this year, but any trip to the eastern half of the US or southern Canada has a good chance of encountering this secretive and startlingly abundant sandpiper.

A factual question this time:

What is the most abundant sandpiper in North America?

Leave your answer as a comment below. The first correct answer will win a new WINGS cap.

As Michael Bowen was the first to point out, increasing size is the key to this riddle about hawk names. His suggestion–Crane–is a good one, giving us Sparrow (Hawk), Pigeon (Hawk), Duck (Hawk), Crane (Hawk).

Andy Jones kept it neatly within the family Falconidae with his proposal, Partridge (Hawk), an obsolete name for (among other species) Gyrfalcon.

Photo: James Lidster

Both answers count as correct, while Elwood Hain’s answer, Auk, wins the prize for the most compelling and most poignant series submitted: (Dusky Seaside) Sparrow, (Passenger) Pigeon, (Labrador) Duck, (Great) Auk.

My own answer? Goose. Falconers are said to have classed their birds by size, the smallest being the Sparrow Hawk, followed by Pigeon Hawk (Merlin) and Duck Hawk (Peregrine Falcon), all of them outweighed by the Goose Hawk–which we know as Goshawk.

Michael, Andy, and Elwood will all soon be sporting their stylish new WINGS caps.

More a riddle this time than a question:

What is the next bird name in the series “Sparrow, Pigeon, Duck…”? There may be more than one defensible answer to this one, so explain your solution.

The first correct answer, and the “best” incorrect answer, will be rewarded with a modest prize from WINGS. Leave your answer as a comment to this blog entry!