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Standard gallery for all photos other than competitions. Images submitted to the New Images gallery are moved here after 30 days.

The theme for this competition is On the Beach. We will accept pictures of birds on a beach – sand, pebbles, mud, or (stretching the definition of beach a little) rock shelf – or birds in/over water adjacent to a beach; we will also accept pictures of birds on beach structures (eg. piers, boat-ramps, etc). We will NOT accept photos of birds in trees (including mangroves) on/beside a beach, birds on cliff-sides, or birds on/over the open ocean (eg images taken during a pelagic trip). Since Australia has an extensive coastline, there’s lots of beach, so plenty of opportunity for this competition; but Australia also has lots of inland, and so in order not to disadvantage members who don’t make it to the coast, we’ll also consider that “beach” applies to beach-like sections of riverbanks and lake shores (rivers and lakes must contain water – Lake Eyre in the dry season is not acceptable).

The theme for this competition is On the Beach. We will accept pictures of birds on a beach – sand, pebbles, mud, or (stretching the definition of beach a little) rock shelf – or birds in/over water adjacent to a beach; we will also accept pictures of birds on beach structures (eg. piers, boat-ramps, etc). We will NOT accept photos of birds in trees (including mangroves) on/beside a beach, birds on cliff-sides, or birds on/over the open ocean (eg images taken during a pelagic trip). Since Australia has an extensive coastline, there’s lots of beach, so plenty of opportunity for this competition; but Australia also has lots of inland, and so in order not to disadvantage members who don’t make it to the coast, we’ll also consider that “beach” applies to beach-like sections of riverbanks and lake shores (rivers and lakes must contain water – Lake Eyre in the dry season is not acceptable).

All of the Round 1 birds have introduced breeding populations on one or more islands. While most are readily identifiable, one or two surprises are included, and there is at least one tricky one. Round 2 will comprise species that are native to Australia (including vagrants) and will include some very tricky customers indeed.

General comment for all images in this ID Challenge: The size and shape of the bird, and the size and shape of its bill, generally help to put these birds into their families of Honeyeaters, Robins, Scrubwrens, Thornbills, Gerygones etc. From there we work with the key features.

The April 2014 Newsletter article on this ID Challenge reports the various mis-identifications. Some of these are addressed in the comments for the individual images, but not all.

Click on a thumbnail image to open the full-size image and view the expert comments regarding identification.

Ducks and Drakes ID Challenge

This theme was chosen to complement the first BLP photographic competition of 2017.

Every bird observer sees ducks and drakes and pretty well everyone can pick out the common species like Pacific Black Duck. However, ducks can be difficult to identify. There are some tricky customers - such as splitting Grey Teal and Chestnut Teal. Ducks, as opposed to drakes, can look similar to ducks of other species. The set of diagnostic characters you need to observe in flight tend to be very different from the set of diagnostic characters you use when ducks are perched or swimming. Many ducks are shot at during their lives and such ducks have huge critical distances. They use the precautionary principle and take off and fly away if they feel threatened. This makes getting close enough to them to identify them without disturbing them a challenge. On the other hand, ducks in suburban ponds are often hand-fed, are habituated to humans, and will allow a very close approach. Finally, ducks are strong fliers, and there is always the possibility of the odd vagrant to add spice to the usual fare.