This gallery contains images that have been submitted for comments/critiques. Images in this gallery appear with a Comment section, where any members may submit comments regarding the image. These comments may be viewed by anyone viewing these images; however, only members may submit comments.

The Finches and Chats Competition is open for entries from 23 March until 18 May 2020. Images must have been taken during the last four years (that is, on or after 23 March 2016). Under the Comments section reasons must be given as to why the image was selected for submission.

This gallery contains images of places within Australia or its external territories/dependencies, such as long range/wide angle landscape photos, or patches of habitat, such as medium range views of typical scrub, forest, wetlands, etc.

This gallery was set up to provide BirdLife Australia with images for their conservation and engagement work especially around Key Biodiversity Areas; see www.birdlife.org.au/kba or birdata for more details of KBAs.

This gallery is for submission of members' images. Images will remain in this gallery for one month, then be moved to the Main Library, or another special gallery if selected for that gallery. Details of this gallery's operation are available here.

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.

This ID Challenge is Marathon Migrators; it focuses on migratory birds that return to Australia during the summer.

Along with the species name, there were four (4) questions:

• What is the scientific name of this bird?
• Where are the summer breeding grounds for this bird? (any country where they are known to breed will be accepted)
• What is the size of this bird? (i.e. the measurement from bill-tip to tail)
• According to BirdLife Australia's Working List, what is the conservation status of this bird?