Test Your Wader IQ

"Stop Following Me" by Paul Martin

A look at the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge Bird Check List will give you an idea of the many different wading birds that can be seen at the Refuge, at various times of year.  At Second Saturday, on August 8, Dr. Wayne Meyer will give us the complete low down on these birds, and in the meantime you can test your wader IQ:

1. Largest of the North American herons: ______  _______  ________

1. The White  __________ has a long down-curved red bill, long red legs and black wing tips.

1. A ___________  __________, only seen at HNWR every few years,  is a huge, long legged bird with a bald head.

1. Tall, long legged white birds with black feet, S-curve necks and yellow/orange bills are ________ Egrets.

1. The _________ Egret sets off immaculate white plumage with black legs and brilliant yellow feet. 

1.  Early conservationists rallied to protect __________s, nearly driven to extinction by plume hunters by the early twentieth century. 

1. The _________  __________  _________  is a small, dark heron with  rich purple-maroon head and neck and dark slaty-blue body.          

1. The __________-_____________  ___________   ___________ is  a nocturnal heron of the southern swamps and coast, has a yellowish crown stripe.

1. A stocky and well-camouflaged heron of dense reed beds is the American  __________.

1. A member of the heron family that spends most of its time in fields rather than streams is the __________   _________.

Thanks to Cornell’s All About Bird for bird facts.  To learn more, check out

http://blog.nwf.org/2011/03/is-this-a-heron-egret-or-crane/

Answers: 1.  Great Blue Heron; 2.  Ibis; 3.  Wood Stork; 4.  Great; 5.  Snowy; 6.  Egrets; 7.  Little Blue Heron; 8.  Yellow-crowned Night Heron; 9.  Bittern; 10.  Cattle Egret