[Tweeters] Bird-and-Word Quiz

[Dennis Paulson via Tweeters]

Rachel, thanks to you and Joseph for a great gift to a bunch of bird nerds, although I noticed you didn’t put a birder on a girder.

What a wonderful idea you had, and I hope it will stimulate all who see it to think of other examples. That is, if there are any; I think you used the vast majority in your creativeness.

I’m forwarding your message to as many people I can think of who aren’t part of the tweeters assemblage.

Happy holidays to all!

Dennis Paulson
Seattle
dennispaulson at comcast dot net


> On Dec 19, 2025, at 12:55 PM, Rachel Lawson via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu> wrote:

> 

> Hello Tweets,

> 

> Earlier this week, our dear friend Elaine Chuang, who you all know because of her generous work for our birding community, including keeping Tweeters running, sent us a little bird quiz.  Her quiz was based on the children's book The Elf on the Shelf by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell that begins with the question "You've heard of an elf on a shelf, but what about...?", followed by depictions of pairs of words for the reader to guess.  Elaine sent us a few bird-related pairs of her own, including pictures of "a finch on a Grinch" and a "coot on a boot".  We enjoy wordplay, so we started thinking up more pairs of birds and words and illustrating them with images we created using AI.  Well, we got a bit carried away, and now that we have over 100 images, we have decided to share them with you.

> 

> Please note, this is a silly bird quiz, not an ornithology textbook.  The birds are recognizable, but not all have the correct field marks of particular species.  Strangely, the program we used has trouble with numbers of toes, and we got tired of correcting it.  Please excuse these and other little inaccuracies and biological improbabilities.

> 

> Here’s the quiz: https://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/0754c7cacc114ca78563978ebaecf6b5

> 

> Many thanks to Elaine for the original idea, to birding friends Douglas Marshall and Jeff Hopkins and our sister Sue Brooks, and niece Rebekah Brooks for contributing some birds and words, and to Dennis Paulson for his suggestions to improve the images.  Maybe later, bird and word lover Blair Bernson will share his elaborations on the wordplay.

> 

> This quiz is our parting holiday gift to the Tweeters community, as we leave the Pacific Northwest for Northwest England.  We will miss you.

> 

> Rachel Lawson and Joseph Brown

> Seattle

> rwlawson5593 at outlook.com

> 

> 

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